Relativistic Electron Shock Drift Acceleration in Low Mach Number Galaxy Cluster Shocks

Abstract

An extreme case of electron shock drift acceleration in low Mach number collisionless shocks is investigated as a plausible mechanism of initial acceleration of relativistic electrons in large-scale shocks in galaxy clusters where upstream plasma temperature is of the order of 10 keV and a degree of magnetization is not too small. One-dimensional electromagnetic full particle simulations reveal that, even though a shock is rather moderate, a part of thermal incoming electrons are accelerated and reflected through relativistic shock drift acceleration and form a local nonthermal population just upstream of the shock. The accelerated electrons can self-generate local coherent waves and further be back-scattered toward the shock by those waves. This may be a scenario for the first stage of the electron shock acceleration occurring at the large-scale shocks in galaxy clusters such as CIZA J2242.8+5301 which has well defined radio relics.

26 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (14)

• Particle Acceleration on Megaparsec Scales in a Merging Galaxy Cluster
• Observations of extended radio emission in clusters
• Gamma rays from molecular clouds illuminated by cosmic rays escaping from interacting supernova remnants
• Electron Injection by Whistler Waves in Non-relativistic Shocks
• Cosmological Shock Waves in the Large Scale Structure of the Universe: Non-gravitational Effects
• Electron Shock Surfing Acceleration in Multidimensions: Two-dimensional Particle-In-Cell Simulation of Collisionless Perpendicular Shock
• Nonthermal Emission Associated with Strong AGN Outbursts at the Centers of Galaxy Clusters
• A critical Mach number for electron injection in collisionless shocks
• Oblique Ion Two-Stream Instability in the Foot Region of a Collisionless Shock
• Absence of Electron Surfing Acceleration in a Two-Dimensional Simulation
• Non-Thermal X-ray Emission from the Northwestern Rim of the Galactic Supernova Remnant G266.2-1.2 (RX J0852.0-4622)
• Mach Number Dependence of Electron Heating in High Mach Number Quasiperpendicular Shocks
• Two-dimensional full particle simulation of a perpendicular collisionless shock with a shock-rest-frame model
• Cosmic-ray electron injection from the ionization of nuclei

Cited by in corpus (29)

• Diffuse Radio Emission from Galaxy Clusters
• Modelling Quasi-Periodic Pulsations in Solar and Stellar Flares
• Non-Thermal Electron Acceleration in Low Mach Number Collisionless Shocks. I. Particle Energy Spectra and Acceleration Mechanism
• Above-the-loop-top Oscillation and Quasi-periodic Coronal Wave Generation in Solar Flares
• Electron Surfing and Drift Accelerations in a Weibel-dominated High-Mach-number Shock
• Particle Acceleration at a Flare Termination Shock: Effect of Large-scale Magnetic Turbulence
• Electron Preacceleration in Weak Quasi-perpendicular Shocks in High-beta Intracluster Medium
• Radio light curves during the passage of cloud G2 near Sgr A*
• Radio Synchrotron Emission from a Bow Shock around the Gas Cloud G2 Heading toward the Galactic Center
• PIC Simulation Methods for Cosmic Radiation and Plasma Instabilities
• Non-thermal Emissions from Cool Cores Heated by Cosmic-Rays in Galaxy Clusters
• The impact of the SZ effect on cm-wavelength (1-30 GHz) observation of galaxy cluster radio relics
• Effects of Multi-scale Plasma Waves on Electron Preacceleration at Weak Quasi-perpendicular Intracluster Shocks
• Particle-in-cell simulations of particle energization via shock drift acceleration from low Mach number quasi-perpendicular shocks in solar flares
• Theory of Electron Injection at Oblique Shock of Finite Thickness
• Shock waves in the magnetized cosmic web: the role of obliquity and cosmic-ray acceleration
• Discovery of a radio relic in the low mass, merging galaxy cluster PLCK G200.9-28.2
• Electron Acceleration at Rippled Low-Mach-number Shocks in High-beta Collisionless Cosmic Plasmas
• High-power laser experiment forming a supercritical collisionless shock in a magnetized uniform plasma at rest
• MMS direct observations of kinetic-scale shock self-reformation
• Microinstabilities in the Transition Region of Weak Quasi-Perpendicular Intracluster Shocks
• Electron Preacceleration at Weak Quasi-perpendicular Intracluster Shocks: Effects of Preexisting Nonthermal Electrons
• Search for low-frequency diffuse radio emission around a shock in the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0744.9+3927
• Electron Firehose Instabilities in High-$\beta$ ICM shocks
• Optical inverse-Compton emission from clusters of galaxies
• ATCA 16 cm Observation of CIZA J1358.9-4750: Implication of Merger Stage and Constraint on Non-Thermal Properties
• Diffuse radio source candidate in CIZA J1358.9-4750
• Electron shock drift acceleration at a low-Mach-number, low-plasma-beta quasi-perpendicular shock
• Acceleration of cosmic rays by double shock waves in galaxy clusters: application to radio relics