Alfven waves in regions of magnetic reconnection and the acceleration of newborn ions

Abstract

We use a 2-D hybrid numerical simulation to study velocity-driven magnetic reconnection in low-beta plasmas. Our results show that Alfven waves can be produced in the process. Under their action newborn ions undergo pitch-angle scattering and assume a spherical shell distribution. A part of the ions are accelerated to a maximum energy of about 4( m iV 2 A0 /2). The acceleration lasts over a time scale of 100/Ω i , and is extremely rapid. The energy spectrum of the accelerated ions is a double power-law spectrum.