Resonance-broadened Transit Time Damping of Particles in MHD Turbulence

Abstract

Abstract As a fundamental astrophysical process, the scattering of particles by turbulent magnetic fields has its physical foundation laid by the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence theory. In the framework of the modern theory of MHD turbulence, we derive a generalized broadened resonance function by taking into account both the magnetic fluctuations and nonlinear decorrelation of turbulent magnetic fields arising in MHD turbulence, and we specify the energy range of particles for the dominance of different broadening mechanisms. The broadened resonance allows for scattering of particles beyond the energy threshold of the linear resonance. By analytically determining the pitch-angle diffusion coefficients for transit time damping (TTD) with slow and fast modes, we demonstrate that the turbulence anisotropy of slow modes suppresses their scattering efficiency. Furthermore, we quantify the dependence of the relative importance between slow and fast modes in TTD scattering on (i) particle energy, (ii) plasma β (the ratio of gas pressure to magnetic pressure), and (iii) damping of MHD turbulence, and we also provide the parameter space for the dominance of slow modes. To exemplify its applications, we find that among typical partially ionized interstellar phases, in the warm neutral medium slow and fast modes have comparable efficiencies in TTD scattering of cosmic rays. For low-energy particles, e.g., sub-Alfvénic charged grains, we show that slow modes always dominate TTD scattering.