Observational Evidence for Stochastic Shock Drift Acceleration of Electrons at the Earth's Bow Shock
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
2020-02-18 v1 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Plasma Physics
Space Physics
Abstract
The first-order Fermi acceleration of electrons requires an injection of electrons into a mildly relativistic energy range. However, the mechanism of injection has remained a puzzle both in theory and observation. We present direct evidence for a novel stochastic shock drift acceleration theory for the injection obtained with Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) observations at Earth's bow shock. The theoretical model can explain electron acceleration to mildly relativistic energies at high-speed astrophysical shocks, which may provide a solution to the long-standing issue of electron injection.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2002.06787,
title = {Observational Evidence for Stochastic Shock Drift Acceleration of Electrons at the Earth's Bow Shock},
author = {T. Amano and T. Katou and N. Kitamura and M. Oka and Y. Matsumoto and M. Hoshino and Y. Saito and S. Yokota and B. L. Giles and W. R. Paterson and C. T. Russell and O. Le Contel and R. E. Ergun and P. -A. Lindqvist and D. L. Turner and J. F. Fennell and J. B. Blake},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.06787},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
7 pages, 4 figures. Published in PRL