Ion acceleration and Alfvén wave generation at the Earth’s bow shock

The processes of ion acceleration and Alfvén wave generation by accelerated particles at the Earth’s bow shock are studied within a quasi-linear approach. Steady-state ion and wave spectra are shown to be established in a time of 0.3–4 h, depending on the background level of Alfvénic turbulence in the solar wind. The Alfvén waves produced by accelerated ions are confined within the frequency range 10^?2–1 Hz and their spectral peak with a wave amplitude βB ～ B comparable to the interplanetary magnetic field strength B corresponds to the frequency v = (2–3) × 10^?2 Hz. The high-frequency part of the wave spectrum (v > 0.2 Hz) undergoes damping by thermal ions. The calculated spectra of the accelerated ions and the Alfvén waves generated by them reproduce the main features observed in experiments.     

On the acceleration of solar-flare charged particles in a collapsing magnetic trap with an electric potential

We consider the kinetic problem of charged-particle acceleration in a magnetic trap with converging magnetic mirrors. We show that for a positive electrostatic potential of the trap plasma relative to the mirrors, the efficiency of confinement and acceleration increases for electrons and decreases for ions.     

Cosmic Ray Acceleration Inside Molecular Clouds

Acceleration of charged particles by neutral gas turbulence in giant molecular clouds is considered. The gamma-ray emission from these clouds is estimated. It is shown that molecular clouds can be the counterparts of some of unidentified sources.     

Effect of parallel electric field on electrostatic ion-cyclotron instability in anisotropic plasma in the presence of ion beam and general distribution function—Particle aspect analysis

Dispersion relation, resonant energy transferred, growth rate and marginal instability criteria for the electrostatic ion-cyclotron wave with general loss-cone distribution in low-β anisotropic, homogeneous plasma in the auroral acceleration region are discussed by investigating the trajectories of the charged particles. Effects of the parallel electric field, ion beam velocity, steepness of the loss-cone distribution and temperature anisotropy on resonant energy transferred and growth rate of the instability are discussed. It is found that the effect of the parallel electric field is to stabilize the wave and enhance the transverse acceleration of ions whereas the effect of steepness of loss-cone, ion beam velocity and the temperature anisotropy is to enhance the growth rate and decrease the transverse acceleration of ions. The steepness of the loss-cone also introduces a peak in the growth rate which shifts towards the lower side of the perpendicular wave number with the increasing steepness of the loss-cone.     

Minimal Energy and Gravitation

Quantum theory in Robertson – Walker spacetime suggests the existence of a minimal energy ε of the order of 10⁻⁴⁵ erg. Reasonable forms for ε give the expansion factor R=R(t)(t= the cosmic time) with no need of gravitational field equations.Einstein's theory should be modified in gravitational fields of strength less than ε c/ħ ∼ 10⁻⁸ cm/s² where c is the speed of light and ħ is the reduced Planck constant. The cosmological term λ is expected to decrease as the universe expands.In the Appendix, ε is derived from a big bang – big crunch Newtonian cosmology.     

Electron surfing acceleration in oblique magnetic fields

Initially, inhomogeneous plasma jets, ejected by active galactic nuclei and associated with gamma-ray bursts, are thermalized by the formation of internal shocks. Jet subpopulations can hereby collide at Lorentz factors of a few. As the resulting relativistic shock expands into the upstream plasma, a significant fraction of the upstream ions is reflected. These ions, together with downstream ions that leak through the shock, form relativistic beams of ions that outrun the shock. The thermalization of these beams via the two-stream instability is thought to contribute significantly to plasma heating and particle acceleration by the shock. Here, the capability of a two-stream instability to generate relativistic field-aligned and cross-field electron flow, is examined for a magnetized plasma by means of a particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. The electrons interact with the developing quasi-electrostatic waves and oblique magnetic fields. The simulation results bring forward evidence that such waves, by their non-linear interactions with the plasma, produce a highly relativistic field-aligned electron flow and electron energies, which could contribute to the radio synchrotron emissions from astrophysical jets, to ultrarelativistic leptonic subpopulations propagating with the jet and to the halo particles surrounding the accretion disc of the black hole.     

Regular and chaotic dynamics in 3D reconnecting current sheets

We consider the possibility of particles being injected at the interior of a reconnecting current sheet (RCS), and study their orbits by dynamical systems methods. As an example we consider orbits in a 3D Harris type RCS. We find that, despite the presence of a strong electric field, a 'mirror' trapping effect persists, to a certain extent, for orbits with appropriate initial conditions within the sheet. The mirror effect is stronger for electrons than for protons. In summary, three types of orbits are distinguished: (i) chaotic orbits leading to escape by stochastic acceleration, (ii) regular orbits leading to escape along the field lines of the reconnecting magnetic component, and (iii) mirror-type regular orbits that are trapped in the sheet, making mirror oscillations. Dynamically, the latter orbits lie on a set of invariant KAM tori that occupy a considerable amount of the phase space of the motion of the particles. We also observe the phenomenon of 'stickiness', namely chaotic orbits that remain trapped in the sheet for a considerable time. A trapping domain, related to the boundary of mirror motions in velocity space, is calculated analytically. Analytical formulae are derived for the kinetic energy gain in regular or chaotic escaping orbits. The analytical results are compared with numerical simulations.     

Pair emission from bare magnetized strange stars

The dominant emission from bare strange stars is thought to be electron–positron pairs, produced through spontaneous pair creation (SPC) in a surface layer of electrons tied to the star by a superstrong electric field. The positrons escape freely, but the electrons are directed towards the star and quickly fill all available states, such that their degeneracy suppresses further SPC. An electron must be reflected and gain energy in order to escape, along with the positron. Each escaping electron leaves a hole that is immediately filled by another electron through SPC. We discuss the collisional processes that produce escaping electrons. When the Landau quantization of the motion perpendicular to the magnetic field is taken into account, electron–electron collisions can lead to an escaping electron only through a multistage process involving higher Landau levels. Although the available estimates of the collision rate are deficient in several ways, it appears that the rate is too low for electron–electron collisions to be effective. A simple kinetic model for electron–quark collisions leads to an estimate of the rate of pair production that is analogous to thermionic emission, but the work function is poorly determined.