Electron Injection at High Mach Number Quasi-Perpendicular Shocks : Surfing and Drift Acceleration

Details Electron Injection at High Mach Number Quasi-Perpendicular Shocks : Surfing and Drift Acceleration Electron Injection at High Mach Number Quasi-Perpendicular Shocks : Surfing and Drift Acceleration

2006-12-08

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612204v2

Astrophys.J.661:190-202,2007

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

35 pages, 9 figures, accepted by ApJ

Scientific paper

10.1086/513599

Electron injection process at high Mach number collisionless quasi-perpendicular shock waves is investigated by means of one-dimensional electromagnetic particle-in-cell simulations. We find that energetic electrons are generated through the following two steps: (1) electrons are accelerated nearly perpendicular to the local magnetic field by shock surfing acceleration at the leading edge of the shock transition region. (2) the preaccelerated electrons are further accelerated by shock drift acceleration. As a result, energetic electrons are preferentially reflected back to the upstream. Shock surfing acceleration provides sufficient energy required for the reflection. Therefore, it is important not only for the energization process by itself, but also for triggering the secondary acceleration process. We also present a theoretical model of the two-step acceleration mechanism based on the simulation results, which can predict the injection efficiency for subsequent diffusive shock acceleration process. We show that the injection efficiency obtained by the present model agrees well with the value obtained by Chandra X-ray observations of SN 1006. At typical supernova remnant shocks, energetic electrons injected by the present mechanism can self-generate upstream Alfven waves, which scatter the energetic electrons themselves.

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