HR: 1340h
AN: SM53B-1284    [Abstracts]
TI: Turbulent acceleration of superthermal electrons
AU: * Ryu, C M
EM: ryu201@postech.ac.kr
AF: POSTECH, Hyojadong San 31, Pohang, 790-784, Korea, Republic of
AU: An, H
EM: landau@postech.ac.kr
AF: POSTECH, Hyojadong San 31, Pohang, 790-784, Korea, Republic of
AU: Rhee, T
EM: babo@postech.ac.kr
AF: POSTECH, Hyojadong San 31, Pohang, 790-784, Korea, Republic of
AU: Yoon, P
EM: phy20723@yahoo.com
AF: POSTECH, Hyojadong San 31, Pohang, 790-784, Korea, Republic of
AU: Yoon, P
EM: phy20723@yahoo.com
AF: IPST, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, MA 20742, United States
AU: Gaelzer, R
EM: rudi@ufpel.edu.br
AF: Instituto de Fisica e Matematica, UFPel, Caixa Postal 354, Pelotas, RS 96010-900, Brazil
AU: Ziebell, L F
EM: ziebell@if.ufrgs.br
AF: Instituto de Fisica, UFRGS, Caixa Postal 15051, Porto Alegre, RS 91501-970, Brazil
AB: The acceleration and heating of charged particles in the solar wind is one of the outstanding problems in contemporary solar and heliospheric physics. Electron distributions with various degrees of asymmetry associated with the energetic tail population are commonly detected in the solar wind near 1 AU. Traditional attempt to address the origin of superthermal electrons usually starts from the collisional dynamics near the Sun and their transport through interplanetary space. In the present paper, we look for collective mechanism(s) as an alternative explanation for the generation of superthermal population. By numerically solving one-dimensional electrostatic weak turbulence equations and by performing fully nonlinear particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, this paper demonstrates that a wide variety of asymmetric energetic tail distribution may result. It is found that a wide variety of asymmetric tail formation becomes possible if one posits that the solar wind electrons are initially composed of thermal core plus field-aligned counter-streaming beams, instead of the customary thermal population plus a single beam. It is shown that the resulting nonlinear wave-wave and wave-particle interactions lead to asymmetric non-thermal tails.
DE: 7845 Particle acceleration
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting