Shocks! David Burgess Astronomy Unit Queen Mary, University of London
This presentation was given at: Workshop on Solar Kinetics and MHD, Feb 2008, RAL Cosener's House, Abingdon, UK. This is not a comprehensive tutorial about collisionless shocks in the solar context. The aim is only to give an indication of some current areas of interest in shock research, and in particular to draw attention to some areas and questions that could be interesting to pursue further in the context of the solar atmosphere and corona.
Shocks: All the important physics is kinetic Particle reflection Instabilities Particle acceleration Without collisions … Converting flow to thermal energy
What parameters are important? Shock normal angle : quasi-parallel versus quasi-perpendicular Mach Number Plasma beta Simulation method (hybrid, PIC, etc) Mass ratio Dimensionality
Some Topics … Electron acceleration Nonstationarity Turbulence
Electron Acceleration at Qperp Fast Fermi by mirror reflection Highest energies (but lowest efficiency) at close to perpendicular
Effect of including structure Test particle electrons in fields from 2D hybrid simulation Structure: power law energy spectra up and downstream
Nonstationarity at Qperp Shocks Hybrid: nonstationary at low enough PIC: overturning via over-reflection of ions Effect controlled by and mass ratio used in simulations …
Nonstationarity at Qperp Shocks With realistic mass ratio foot dynamics controlled by electromagnetic two stream instability With implications for (eg) shock surfing acceleration
Nonstationarity at Oblique Shocks PIC simulations Away from perpendicular, standing whistler can dominate structure Nonstationarity via competition of different mechanisms
Kinetic Effects in Turbulence Kinetics and the “dissipation” scale What is the “energy cascade” at kinetic scales? What happens with multiple kinetic scales? Control of temperature and temperature anisotropy with linear instabilities
Shocks in the Corona Flares …
Solar shocks continued … CME
More solar shocks?
Dynamic Fibrils - Simulations