Acceleration of energetic particles by compressive plasma waves Ming Zhang Department of Physics and Space Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology Seesion 4, SH2.X-907, Friday August 12, 2011, 17:06-18:30 China Railway Construction Plaza
Suprathermal Tail Spectra Graph from G. Gloeckler and L. Fisk (2006) Fisk and Gloeckler suggested acceleration by stochastic acceleration similar to second-order Fermi mechanism
Diffusive Compression Acceleration
Spectrum after acceleration by 1 wave in various forms Speed profile
Spectrum of particles after N acceleration/cooling cycles
Extended range of mean free path for effective acceleration shock
Spectrum produced by square wave with continuous injection (no large-scale adiabatic cooling)
The power-law slope does not depend on wave compression ratio. Produced by tooth wave The slope if the power-law is determined by the difference of power-law slopes between acceleration by compression egion and cooling by rarefaction region. The power-law slope does not depend on wave compression ratio. The power-law slope does not depend on wave shape. The power-law slope does not depend on diffusion coefficient. The slope establishes as long as there are enough number of waves.
Spectra with losses
Back-reaction of accelerated particles
Comparison with momentum diffusion from perturbation approximation (Bykov and Toptygin (1983) In co-moving frame Reproduce all the steady (asymptotic) solutions of this model Diffusion is a good approximation after large number of waves
Summary Acceleration of energetic particles by compressional plasma waves in the diffusion-dominated regime is very fast. With continuous particle injection, all spectra accelerated by a large number of waves approaches to a universal power-law spectrum above injection energy and flat spectrum below injection energy. without adiabatic cooling loss, the power-law index is always -3, which is independent of anything model parameters. This slope establishes as long as there are enough number of waves. with cooling, the power-law slope is steeper. Pressure of accelerated particles can build up very quickly. If the pressure can reduce the amplitude of waves, the power-law slope will eventually approach -5 to maintain finite but large enough pressure. Acceleration of energetic particles by compressional plasma waves behaves similarly but differently (finite wave cycles) from traditional second-order Fermi acceleration. Dpp ~ D0p2
Failure of second order Fermi acceleration Model A: Plain diffusive shock acceleration model Model B: Shock acceleration + second-order Fermi acceleration in the heliosheath Model C: Shock acceleration + continuous compression in the heliosheath
Particle acceleration by adiabatic compression in convection dominated regime