HR: 0830h
AN: SM41B-0564    [PDF]
TI: Kinetic Simulations of Shear Alfv\'{e}n waves: Electron Dynamics in uniform and nonuniform magnetic fields
AU: * Watt, C E
EM: cwatt@space.ualberta.ca
AF: University of Alberta, Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2J1 Canada
AU: Rankin, R
EM: rankin@space.ualberta.ca
AF: University of Alberta, Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2J1 Canada
AU: Marchand, R
EM: marchand@phys.ualberta.ca
AF: University of Alberta, Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2J1 Canada
AB: Standing and travelling shear Alfv\'{e}n waves contribute to electron acceleration and parallel electric field formation on auroral field lines in Earth's magnetosphere. We model the shear Alfv\'{e}n waves in one dimension and use a self-consistent kinetic simulation code to study the parallel electron dynamics in the presence of shear Alfv\'{e}n waves in the inertial regime. We study both travelling shear Alfv\'{e}n wave pulses as well as standing shear Alfv\'{e}n waves which represent field line resonances. We compare results from simulation runs with uniform and non-uniform magnetic fields in order to demonstrate the effect of including the magnetic mirror force term. We also show results from simulation runs with non-uniform density profiles, to investigate the effect of varying the Alfv\'{e}n speed and electron inertial length along the field line.
DE: 2704 Auroral phenomena (2407)
DE: 2716 Energetic particles, precipitating
DE: 2736 Magnetosphere/ionosphere interactions
DE: 2772 Plasma waves and instabilities
SC: SPA - Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting