Electron heating at quasi-perpendicular collisionless shocks
Space Physics
2024-02-27 v1
Abstract
Adiabatic and non-adiabatic electron dynamics have been proposed to explain electron heating across collisionless shocks. We analyze the evolution of the suprathermal electrons across 310 quasi-perpendicular shocks with using in-situ measurements. We show that the electron heating mechanism shifts from predominantly adiabatic to non-adiabatic for the Alfv\'enic Mach number in the de Hoffman-Teller with the latter constituting 48\% of the analyzed shocks. The observed non-adiabatic heating is consistent with the stochastic shock drift acceleration mechanism.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2402.16564,
title = {Electron heating at quasi-perpendicular collisionless shocks},
author = {Ahmad Lalti and Yuri V. Khotyaintsev and Daniel B. Graham},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.16564},
year = {2024}
}