Abstract
The boosting of electrons from a Maxwellian distribution into a suprathermal power-law tail is studied, using a test-particle simulation code, following the full equations of motion of tens of thousands of electrons chosen from a thermal population as they move through general time-dependent magnetic fields. This distinguishes between bulk heating of the electron population or boosting of selected electrons. Which of these occurs is found to depend on the size of the swarm thermal speed compared with the electron thermal speed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have