scholarly journals Charged-particle acceleration in a reconnecting current sheet including multiple magnetic islands and a nonuniform background magnetic field

2017 ◽  
Vol 605 ◽  
pp. A120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Li ◽  
N. Wu ◽  
J. Lin
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Charged Particle ◽  
Current Sheet ◽  
Magnetic Islands ◽  
Background Magnetic Field ◽  
Reconnecting Current Sheet

Plasma turbulence generated during particle acceleration in magnetic islands

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Zharkova ◽  
Qian Xia
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Current Sheet ◽  
Plasma Turbulence ◽  
Lower Hybrid ◽  
Diffusion Region ◽  
Magnetic Islands ◽  
Langmuir Waves ◽  
Kink Instability ◽  
Hybrid Waves

<div> <div> <div> <p>We investigate plasma turbulence generated during particle acceleration in magnetic islands within 3D Harris-type reconnecting current sheets (RCSs),using the particle-in-cell approach.  RCSs with a strong guiding magnetic field  ar shown to lead to separation of electrons and ions into the opposite sides from the current sheet mid-plane that significantly reduces kink instability along the guiding field direction. Particles with the same charge also have asymmetric trajectories forming two distinct populations of beams: ‘transit’ particles, which pass through RCS from one edge to another, become strongly energised and form nearly unidirectional beams; and ‘bounced’ particles, which are reflected from the diffusion region and move back to the same side they entered the current sheet, gaining much less energy and forming more dispersive spatial distributions. Thes transit and bounced particles form the ‘bump-on-tail’ velocity distributions that naturally generate plasma turbulence. Using the wavelet analysis of electric and magnetic field fluctuations in the frequency domain, we identified some characteristic waves produced by particle beams. In particular, we found thre are Langmuir waves near X-nullpoints produced by two electron beam instabilities, while the presence of anisotropic temperature variations inside magnetic islands lead to whistler waves. The lower-hybrid waves are generated inside the magnetic islands, owing to the two-stream instabilities of the ions. While the high-frequency fluctuations, upper hybrid waves, or electron Bernstein waves, pile up near X-nullpoints. The results can be beneficial for understanding in-situ observations with modern space missions of energetic particles in the heliosphere.</p> </div> </div> </div>

Particle acceleration by interstellar plasma shock waves in non-uniform background magnetic field

2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (4) ◽  
pp. 5517-5523
Author(s):  
P Rashed-Mohassel ◽  
M Ghorbanalilu
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Shock Waves ◽  
Electric Field ◽  
Background Field ◽  
Magnetized Plasma ◽  
Background Magnetic Field ◽  
Positive Variation ◽  
Uniform Background ◽  
Plasma Shock

ABSTRACT Particle acceleration by plasma shock waves is investigated for a magnetized plasma cloud propagating in a non-uniform background magnetic field by means of analytical and numerical calculations. The mechanism studied here is mainly, magnetic trapping acceleration (MTA) which is previously investigated for a cloud moving through the uniform interstellar magnetic field (IMF). In this work, the acceleration is studied for a cloud moving in an antiparallel background field with spatial variations along the direction of motion. For negative variation, the cloud moves towards an antiparallel magnetic field with an increasing intensity, the trapped particle moves to locations with higher convective electric field and therefore gains more energy over time. For positive variation, the background field decreases to zero and changes into a parallel field with an increasing intensity. It is concluded that, when the background field vanishes, the MTA mechanism ceases and the particle escapes into the space. This leads to a bouncing acceleration which further increases energy of the gyrating particle. The two processes are followed by a shock drift acceleration, where due to the background magnetic field gradient, the particle drifts along the electric field and gains energy. Although for positive variation, three different mechanisms are involved, energy gain is less than in the case of a uniform background field.

Electron‐Cyclotron Maser Driven by Charged‐Particle Acceleration from Magnetic Field–aligned Electric Fields

2000 ◽  
Vol 538 (1) ◽  
pp. 456-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. Ergun ◽  
C. W. Carlson ◽  
J. P. McFadden ◽  
G. T. Delory ◽  
R. J. Strangeway ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Charged Particle ◽  
Electric Fields ◽  
Electron Cyclotron ◽  
Electron Cyclotron Maser ◽  
Cyclotron Maser

Resistive tearing-mode instability in a magnetic-field-reversing current sheet with coplanar viscous stagnation-point flow

1996 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin T. C. Ip ◽  
Bengt U. Ö. Sonnerup
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Current Sheet ◽  
Stagnation Point ◽  
Linear Growth ◽  
Field Configuration ◽  
Stagnation Point Flow ◽  
Magnetic Islands ◽  
Tearing Mode ◽  
Mode Instability ◽  
Simulation Results

The tearing-mode instability of a magnetic-field-reversing current sheet in the presence of coplanar incompressible stagnation-point flow is examined. The unperturbed equilibrium state is an exact solution of the steady-state, dissipative, incompressible magnetohydrodynamic equations; thus the analysis is valid even for small viscous and resistive Lundquist numbers Sν and Sη. The instability problem has no known analytical solution; for this reason, it is studied numerically by use of a finite-element method. Simulation results indicate stability for sufficiently small values of Sν or Sη and instability for large values. The boundary separating stable and unstable regions in the (Sν, Sη) plane is located. In the unstable regime, the simulation results show formation and subsequent convection of magnetic islands along the current sheet at about 80% of the unperturbed outflow flow speed, on average. Stretching and pinching of convecting magnetic islands are also observed. The results show the occurrence of multiple X-line reconnection at the centre of the current sheet (x = 0). Small-scale structures of vorticity and current density near the X-point reconnection sites are found to be qualitatively consistent with results obtained by Matthaeus. Normalized global linear growth rates are found to obey the approximate power law, within the ranges 20 ≦ Sν ≦ 70 and 200 ≦ Sη 1000. At least for Sν ≦ 1000, the number of magnetic islands is found to be nearly independent of Sν indicating the existence of a narrow band of dominant wavelengths in this range. The stretching of magnetic islands, which is present in this coplanar flow and field configuration, but not in the perpendicular flow and field configuration examined by Phan and Sonnerup, causes a substantial decrease in linear growth rate relative to that obtained by those authors. The stability curves obtained are qualitatively similar in both analyses, but the stable region is much larger for coplanar flow and field. Unlike most simulations of the tearing mode, no symmetry conditions are imposed on the perturbations; nevertheless, they develop in a symmetric manner.

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