Electron Acceleration during Macroscale Magnetic Reconnection

Abstract

The first self-consistent simulations of electron acceleration during magnetic reconnection in a macroscale system are presented. Consistent with solar flare observations the spectra of energetic electrons take the form of power-laws that extend more than two decades in energy. The drive mechanism for these nonthermal electrons is Fermi reflection in growing and merging magnetic flux ropes. A strong guide field is found to suppress the production of nonthermal electrons by weakening the Fermi drive mechanism. For a weak guide field the total energy content of nonthermal electrons dominates that of the hot thermal electrons even though their number density remains small. Our results are benchmarked with the hard x-ray, radio and extreme ultra-violet (EUV) observations of the X8.2-class solar flare on September 10, 2017.

References in corpus (22)

• Global Energetics of Thirty-Eight Large Solar Eruptive Events
• Formation of Hard Power-laws in the Energetic Particle Spectra Resulting from Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection
• Dissipation of the sectored heliospheric magnetic field near the heliopause: a mechanism for the generation of anomalous cosmic rays
• The Mechanisms of Electron Heating and Acceleration during Magnetic Reconnection
• Microwave and Hard X-Ray Observations of the 2017 September 10 Solar Limb Flare
• The power-law spectra of energetic particles during multi-island magnetic reconnection
• Measurement of magnetic field and relativistic electrons along a solar flare current sheet
• Spectroscopic Observations of Current Sheet Formation and Evolution
• Observations of Turbulent Magnetic Reconnection Within a Solar Current Sheet
• The role of three-dimensional transport in driving enhanced electron acceleration during magnetic reconnection
• Kappa Distribution Model for Hard X-Ray Coronal Sources of Solar Flares
• Parallel electric fields are inefficient drivers of energetic electrons in magnetic reconnection
• Reduction of Ion Heating During Magnetic Reconnection by Large-Scale Effective Potentials
• A Statistical Model of Magnetic Islands in a Large Current Layer
• Formation of Power-law Electron Energy Spectra in Three-dimensional Low-$\beta$ Magnetic Reconnection
• Global Energetics of Solar Flares: III. Non thermal Energies
• Accelerated electrons observed down to <7 keV in a NuSTAR solar microflare
• A computational model for exploring particle acceleration during reconnection in macro-scale systems
• Kinetic modeling of particle acceleration in a solar null point reconnection region
• The Reduction of Magnetic Reconnection Outflow Jets to Sub-Alfvénic Speeds
• Large-Scale Parallel Electric Fields and Return Currents in a Global Simulation Model
• Instabilities and Turbulence in Low-$\beta$ Guide Field Reconnection Exhausts with Kinetic Riemann Simulations

Cited by in corpus (44)

• Magnetic reconnection in the era of exascale computing and multiscale experiments
• The Acceleration of Charged Particles and Formation of Power-law Energy Spectra in Nonrelativistic Magnetic Reconnection
• Variability of the Reconnection Guide Field in Solar Flares
• The Atmospheric Response to High Nonthermal Electron Beam Fluxes in Solar Flares. II. Hydrogen Broadening Predictions for Solar Flare Observations with the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope
• Energetic Electron Distribution of the Coronal Acceleration Region: First results from Joint Microwave and Hard X-ray Imaging Spectroscopy
• Modeling Electron Acceleration and Transport in the Early Impulsive Phase of the 2017 September 10 Solar Flare
• Numerical Modeling of Energetic Electron Acceleration, Transport, and Emission in Solar Flares: Connecting Loop-top and Footpoint Hard X-Ray Sources
• Correlated Spatiotemporal Evolution of Extreme-Ultraviolet Ribbons and Hard X-rays in a Solar Flare
• Ultimate Fast Gyrosynchrotron Codes
• Suprathermal Ion Energy spectra and Anisotropies near the Heliospheric Current Sheet crossing observed by the Parker Solar Probe during Encounter 7
• Simultaneous Proton and Electron Energization during Macroscale Magnetic Reconnection
• Fifty Years of 3He-rich Events
• Properties and Energetics of Magnetic Reconnection: I. Evolution of Flare Ribbons
• Concurrent Particle Acceleration and Pitch-Angle Anisotropy Driven by Magnetic Reconnection: Ion-Electron Plasmas
• Particle acceleration in an MHD-scale system of multiple current sheets
• A Computational Model for Ion and Electron Energization during Macroscale Magnetic Reconnection
• Particle heating and acceleration by reconnecting and non-reconnecting Current Sheets
• Magnetic reconnection-driven energization of protons up to 400 keV at the near-Sun heliospheric current sheet
• A model of double coronal hard X-ray sources in solar flares
• The efficiency of electron acceleration during the impulsive phase of a solar flare
• Solar Energetic Particle Charge States and Abundances with Nonthermal Electrons
• Spectral Power-law Formation by Sequential Particle Acceleration in Multiple Flare Magnetic Islands
• Super-Fermi Acceleration in Multiscale MHD Reconnection
• Compression Acceleration of Protons and Heavier Ions at the Heliospheric Current Sheet
• Particle Acceleration in Magnetic Reconnection with Ad hoc Pitch-angle Scattering
• Cold Solar Flares I. Microwave Domain
• Modeling Hadronic Gamma-ray Emissions from Solar Flares and Prospects for Detecting Non-thermal Signatures from Protostars
• Stochastic Electron Acceleration by Temperature Anisotropy Instabilities Under Solar Flare Plasma Conditions
• Particle acceleration in solar flares with imaging-spectroscopy in soft X-rays
• Slow Shock Formation Upstream of Reconnecting Current Sheets
• Flare-accelerated Electrons in the Kappa Distribution from X-Ray Spectra with the Warm-Target Model
• Coupling between magnetic reconnection, energy release, and particle acceleration in the X17.2 2003 October 28 solar flare
• A Parallel-Kinetic-Perpendicular-Moment Model for Magnetized Plasmas
• Variable Ion Compositions of Solar Energetic Particle Events in the Inner Heliosphere: A Field-line Braiding Model with Compound Injections
• Next-Generation Comprehensive Data-Driven Models of Solar Eruptive Events
• Efficient Nonthermal Ion and Electron Acceleration Enabled by the Flux-Rope Kink Instability in 3D Nonrelativistic Magnetic Reconnection
• Stereoscopic Observations of Solar X-ray Sources Explained by a Data-Constrained Magnetohydrodynamic Simulation
• The Maximum Particle Energy Gain During Magnetic Reconnection
• Test particle sampling and particle acceleration in a 2D coronal plasmoid-mediated reconnecting current sheet
• Role of magnetic shear distribution on the formation of eruptive flux ropes
• Nonthermal particle acceleration from maximum entropy in collisionless plasmas
• Numerical Investigation of Efficient Electron Acceleration at an Unsteady Solar Flare Loop-Top
• Energy-Containing Electrons in Solar Flares: Improving Hard X-Ray and EUV Diagnostics
• Probing Proton versus Electron Heating and Energization during Magnetic Reconnection