Related papers: Demagnetized Electron Heating at Collisionless Sho…
Collisionless shocks tend to send charged particles into the upstream, driving electric currents through the plasma. Using kinetic particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate how the background thermal plasma neutralizes such currents in…
We study the thermalization, injection, and acceleration of ions with different mass/charge ratios, $A/Z$, in non-relativistic collisionless shocks via hybrid (kinetic ions-fluid electrons) simulations. In general, ions thermalize to a…
Numerical models of collisionless shocks robustly predict an electron distribution comprised of both thermal and non-thermal electrons. Here, we explore in detail the effect of thermal electrons on the emergent synchrotron emission from…
We consider electron acceleration by obliquely propagating fast mode waves in magnetically dominated accretion disk coronae. For low coronal plasma densities, acceleration can exceed Coulomb drag at lower energies and energize electrons out…
Interplanetary (IP) shocks efficiently modify the proton temperature anisotropy of the solar wind. Analyzing ~800 IP shocks observed by the Wind spacecraft from 1997-2024, we present a statistical study of upstream and downstream proton…
We discuss inherent thermometry in a Superconductor - Normal metal - Superconductor tunnel junction. In this configuration, the energy selectivity of single-particle tunneling can provide a significant electron cooling, depending on the…
Photoionization produces supra-thermal electrons, electrons with much more energy than is found in a thermalized gas at electron temperatures characteristic of nebulae. The presence of these high energy electrons may solve the long-standing…
Foreshock transients upstream of Earth's bow shock have been recently observed to accelerate electrons to many times their thermal energy. How such acceleration occurs is unknown, however. Using THEMIS case studies, we examine a subset of…
Analysis of model fit results of 15,210 electron velocity distribution functions (VDFs), observed within $\pm$2 hours of 52 interplanetary (IP) shocks by the Wind spacecraft near 1 AU, is presented as the third and final part on electron…
We reveal a dramatic departure of electron thermodiffusion in solids relative to the commonly accepted picture of the ideal free-electron gas model. In particular, we show that the interaction with the lattice and impurities, combined with…
Particle heating in advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs) by nonlinear MHD (Alfvenic) turbulence is investigated. Such turbulence with highly-fluctuating magnetic fields, $\tilde B\sim B_0$, is believed to be naturally produced by the…
We use fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations with unprecedentedly large transverse box sizes to study particle acceleration in weakly-magnetized mildly relativistic shocks traveling at a velocity $\approx 0.75c$ and a Mach number of…
We measure ion heating following transport throughout a Y-junction surface-electrode ion trap. By carefully selecting the trap voltage update rate during adiabatic transport along a trap arm, we observe minimal heating relative to the…
Strong non-relativistic shocks are known to accelerate particles up to relativistic energies. However, for Diffusive Shock Acceleration electrons must have a highly suprathermal energy, implying a need for very efficient pre-acceleration.…
Suprathermal tails are a common feature of solar wind electron velocity distributions, and are expected in the solar corona. From the corona, suprathermal electrons can propagate through the steep temperature gradient of the transition…
We explore a mechanism, entirely new to the fast solar wind, of electron heating by lower hybrid waves to explain the shift to higher charge states observed in various elements in the fast wind at 1 A.U. relative to the original coronal…
We have used the free expansion of ultracold neutral plasmas as a time-resolved probe of electron temperature. A combination of experimental measurements of the ion expansion velocity and numerical simulations characterize the crossover…
By deriving the 3/2 dimensional Hamiltonian equations for electrons in the intense laser radiation and quasi-static transverse electric and longitudinal magnetic fields, the electron heating mechanisms are examined both for low harmonic…
We investigate electron heating by magnetic-field-aligned electric fields ($E_\parallel$) during anti-parallel magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail. Using a statistical sample of 140 reconnection outflows, we infer the…
Highly disordered superconductors, in the magnetic-field-driven insulating state, can show discontinuous current-voltage characteristics. Electron overheating has been shown to give a consistent description of this behavior, but there are…