Ao Guo, Quanming Lu, San Lu, Zhongwei Yang, Xinliang Gao
{"title":"Electron shock drift acceleration at a low-Mach-number, low-plasma-beta quasi-perpendicular shock","authors":"Ao Guo, Quanming Lu, San Lu, Zhongwei Yang, Xinliang Gao","doi":"arxiv-2409.03174","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Shock drift acceleration plays an important role in generating high-energy\nelectrons at quasi-perpendicular shocks, but its efficiency in low beta plasmas\nis questionable. In this article, we perform a two-dimensional particle-in-cell\nsimulation of a low-Mach-number low-plasma-beta quasi-perpendicular shock, and\nfind that the electron cyclotron drift instability is unstable at the leading\nedge of the shock foot, which is excited by the relative drift between the\nshock-reflected ions and the incident electrons. The electrostatic waves\ntriggered by the electron cyclotron drift instability can scatter and heat the\nincident electrons, which facilitates them to escape from the shock's loss\ncone. These electrons are then reflected by the shock and energized by shock\ndrift acceleration. In this way, the acceleration efficiency of shock drift\nacceleration at low-plasma-beta quasi-perpendicular shocks is highly enhanced.","PeriodicalId":501423,"journal":{"name":"arXiv - PHYS - Space Physics","volume":"18 780 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"arXiv - PHYS - Space Physics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/arxiv-2409.03174","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Shock drift acceleration plays an important role in generating high-energy
electrons at quasi-perpendicular shocks, but its efficiency in low beta plasmas
is questionable. In this article, we perform a two-dimensional particle-in-cell
simulation of a low-Mach-number low-plasma-beta quasi-perpendicular shock, and
find that the electron cyclotron drift instability is unstable at the leading
edge of the shock foot, which is excited by the relative drift between the
shock-reflected ions and the incident electrons. The electrostatic waves
triggered by the electron cyclotron drift instability can scatter and heat the
incident electrons, which facilitates them to escape from the shock's loss
cone. These electrons are then reflected by the shock and energized by shock
drift acceleration. In this way, the acceleration efficiency of shock drift
acceleration at low-plasma-beta quasi-perpendicular shocks is highly enhanced.