Observational Evidence for Stochastic Shock Drift Acceleration of Electrons at the Earth's Bow Shock
arXiv:2002.06787 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.065101
Abstract
The first-order Fermi acceleration of electrons requires an injection of electrons into a mildly relativistic energy range. However, the mechanism of injection has remained a puzzle both in theory and observation. We present direct evidence for a novel stochastic shock drift acceleration theory for the injection obtained with Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) observations at Earth's bow shock. The theoretical model can explain electron acceleration to mildly relativistic energies at high-speed astrophysical shocks, which may provide a solution to the long-standing issue of electron injection.
7 pages, 4 figures. Published in PRL
References in corpus (5)
- Electron Surfing and Drift Accelerations in a Weibel-dominated High-Mach-number Shock
- Relativistic electrons produced by foreshock disturbances
- Theory of Stochastic Shock Drift Acceleration for Electrons in the Shock Transition Region
- A critical Mach number for electron injection in collisionless shocks
- When disorder looks like order: a new model to explain radial magnetic fields in young supernova remnants