Particle Acceleration In Current Sheets Research Articles

Cross-scale coupling in the auroral acceleration region

[1] High resolution imaging within regions of auroral luminosity reveal complex, highly structured dynamic and often vortical forms which evolve on time scales of the order of several seconds and less. These features are inherently multi-scale in nature with different sizes moving and evolving at different rates. Recent analyses have shown how the scale dependency of these motions can provide new insights into the nature of energy transport across scales occurring in current sheets through the auroral acceleration region. However the processes driving this transport and thus facilitating particle acceleration and the formation of bright and dynamic aurora remain unknown. This is a basic issue not only for advancing understanding of auroral arc formation but moreover for understanding dissipation and particle acceleration in current sheets generally. In this Frontier article we show how dedicated space-borne auroral imagery combined with magnetically conjugate field and particle measurements can be used to advance understanding of this universal physical process. By coupling these measurements with numerical simulations we show how flow shear, magnetic reconnection and tearing may launch a cascade toward smaller scales and conspire to form, shape and structure auroral forms. The simulations show that these processes evolve toward a robust scaling of structured magnetic fields (Bx) with wavenumber (ky) perpendicular to the geomagnetic field where Bx2(ky)/Δky ∼ ky−7/3 as observed.

Interpretation of particle acceleration in a simulation study of collisionless reconnection

A recent simulation study [Horiuchi and Sato, Phys. Plasmas 4, 277 (1997)] investigated collisionless magnetic reconnection in a sheared magnetic field. Theoretical models for particle acceleration in current sheets are used to interpret some of the simulation results, which are found to be consistent with analytical expressions for values of the electron energy gain, the acceleration time, and the longitudinal magnetic field giving rise to adiabatic particle motion. The simulation also identified an ion acceleration mechanism that will require additional theoretical study.

Particle acceleration in reconnecting current sheets

We study motions of charged particles in reconnecting current sheets (CS) which have both transverse (perpendicular to the current sheet plane) and longitudinal (parallel to the electric current inside the sheet) components of the magnetic field. Such CS, called non-neutral, are formed in regions of magnetic field line reconnection in the solar atmosphere. We develop an analytical technique which allows us to reproduce previous results concerning the influence of transverse fields on particle motion and acceleration. This technique also allows us to evaluate the effect of the longitudinal field. The latter increases considerably the efficiency of particle acceleration in CS. The energizing of electrons during the main phase of solar flares can be interpreted as their acceleration in non-neutral CS.