Particle Acceleration by Fast Modes in Solar Flares

Abstract

We address the problem of particle acceleration in solar flares by fast modes which may be excited during the reconnection and undergo cascade and are subjected to damping. We extend the calculations beyond quasilinear approximation and compare the acceleration and scattering by transit time damping and gyroresonance interactions. We find that the acceleration is dominated by the so called transit time damping mechanism. We estimate the total energy transferred into particles, and show that our approach provides sufficiently accurate results We compare this rate with energy loss rate. Scattering by fast modes appears to be sufficient to prevent the protons from escaping the system during the acceleration. Confinement of electrons, on the other hand, requires the existence of plasma waves. Electrons can be accelerated to GeV energies through the process described here for solar flare conditions.

7 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (2)

• Compressible Turbulence in Galaxy Clusters: Physics and Stochastic Particle Re-acceleration
• Cosmic Ray Propagation: Nonlinear Diffusion Parallel and Perpendicular to Mean Magnetic Field

Cited by in corpus (4)

• A model of acceleration of Anomalous Cosmic Rays by Reconnection in the Heliosheath
• Particle acceleration by strong turbulence in solar flares: theory of spectrum evolution
• Cascade and Damping of Alfvén-Cyclotron Fluctuations: Application to Solar Wind Turbulence Spectrum
• Properties and selected implications of magnetic turbulence for interstellar medium, Local Bubble and solar wind