1,519 research outputs found
Three-wave interactions of dispersive plasma waves propagating parallel to the magnetic field
Three-wave interactions of plasma waves propagating parallel to the mean
magnetic field at frequencies below the electron cyclotron frequency are
considered. We consider Alfv\'en--ion-cyclotron waves,
fast-magnetosonic--whistler waves, and ion-sound waves. Especially the weakly
turbulent low-beta plasmas like the solar corona are studied, using the
cold-plasma dispersion relation for the transverse waves and the
fluid-description of the warm plasma for the longitudinal waves. We analyse the
resonance conditions for the wave frequencies and wavenumbers , and
the interaction rates of the waves for all possible combinations of the three
wave modes, and list those reactions that are not forbidden.Comment: accepted for publication in Advanced Science Letter
Iron-rich solar particle events measured by SOHO/ERNE during two solar cycles
We study the differences in the heavy ion composition of solar energetic
particle (SEP) events between solar cycles 23 and 24. We have surveyed the
SOHO/ERNE heavy ion data from the beginning of solar cycle 23 until the end of
June 2015, that is, well into the declining phase of cycle 24. We used this
long observation period to study the properties of heavy ions (from C to Fe)
and to compare the two solar cycles in this respect. We surveyed the data for
SEP events with enhancements in the Fe/C and Fe/O intensity ratios in the
energy range 5-15 MeV per nucleon, and associated the events with solar flare
and coronal mass ejections (CME) when possible. We studied the properties of
heavy ions in these events and compared the average relative abundances of
heavy ions between the two solar cycles. We found that fewer days had C and O
intensities higher than ~10
cmsrs(MeVn) during solar cycle 24 than
during cycle 23. For Fe this difference was clear even at lower intensities. We
also found that fewer days had Fe/(C+O) > 0.183 during cycle 24. We identified
86 SEP events with at least one Fe-rich day, 65 of which occurred during cycle
23 and only 21 during cycle 24. We found that impulsive events have been almost
completely absent during cycle 24. Mean abundances of heavy ions in the events
were found to be significantly lower during cycle 24 than in cycle 23. Our
results reflect the reduced solar activity in cycle 24 and indicate lower
efficiency of particle acceleration processes for both gradual and impulsive
SEP events in cycle 24.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures and 3 tables. To be published in A&
Stochastic Acceleration in Relativistic Parallel Shocks
(abridged) We present results of test-particle simulations on both the first
and the second order Fermi acceleration at relativistic parallel shock waves.
We consider two scenarios for particle injection: (i) particles injected at the
shock front, then accelerated at the shock by the first order mechanism and
subsequently by the stochastic process in the downstream region; and (ii)
particles injected uniformly throughout the downstream region to the stochastic
process. We show that regardless of the injection scenario, depending on the
magnetic field strength, plasma composition, and the employed turbulence model,
the stochastic mechanism can have considerable effects on the particle spectrum
on temporal and spatial scales too short to be resolved in extragalactic jets.
Stochastic acceleration is shown to be able to produce spectra that are
significantly flatter than the limiting case of particle energy spectral index
-1 of the first order mechanism. Our study also reveals a possibility of
re-acceleration of the stochastically accelerated spectrum at the shock, as
particles at high energies become more and more mobile as their mean free path
increases with energy. Our findings suggest that the role of the second order
mechanism in the turbulent downstream of a relativistic shock with respect to
the first order mechanism at the shock front has been underestimated in the
past, and that the second order mechanism may have significant effects on the
form of the particle spectra and its evolution.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures (9 black/white and 2 color postscripts). To be
published in the ApJ (accepted 6 Nov 2004
Turbulence transmission in parallel modified shocks using ray tracing
We apply a semi-classical approach of handling waves as quasiparticle gas in
a slowly varying flow -- analogous to ray tracing -- to calculate the Alfven
wave transmission parameters, the resulting cross-helicity of the waves and the
scattering-centre compression ratio, for cases where the shock thickness is
large enough for the turbulent waves in the plasma to see the transition of the
background flow parameters as smooth and slowly varying. For nonrelativistic
shocks the wave transmission produces similar effects on the downstream
turbulence and the scattering-centre compression ratio as does the transmission
through a step shock: the downstream Alfven waves propagate predominantly
towards the shock in the local plasma frame and, thus, the scattering-centre
compression ratio is larger than the gas compression ratio. For thick
relativistic shocks, however, we find qualitative differences with respect to
the step-shock case: for low-Alfvenic-Mach-number shocks the downstream waves
propagate predominantly away from the shock, and the scattering-centre
compression ratio is lower than that of the gas. Thus, when taken into account,
the Alfven wave transmission can decrease the efficiency of the first-order
Fermi acceleration in a thick relativistic shock.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted to A&
Conversion of relativistic pair energy into radiation in the jets of active galactic nuclei
It is generally accepted that relativistic jet outflows power the nonthermal
emission from active galactic nuclei (AGN). The composition of these jets --
leptonic versus hadronic -- is still under debate. We investigate the
microphysical details of the conversion process of the kinetic energy in
collimated relativistic pair outflows into radiation through interactions with
the ambient interstellar medium. Viewed from the coordinate system comoving
with the pair outflow, the interstellar protons and electrons represent a
proton-electron beam propagating with relativistic speed in the pair plasma. We
demonstrate that the beam excites both electrostatic and low-frequency
magnetohydrodynamic Alfven-type waves via a two-stream instability in the pair
background plasma, and we calculate the time evolution of the distribution
functions of the beam particles and the generated plasma wave turbulence power
spectra. For standard AGN jet outflow and environment parameters we show that
the initial beam distributions of interstellar protons and electrons quickly
relax to plateau-distributions in parallel momentum, transferring thereby
one-half of the initial energy density of the beam particles to electric field
fluctuations of the generated electrostatic turbulence. On considerably longer
time scales, the plateaued interstellar electrons and protons will isotropise
by their self-generated transverse turbulence and thus be picked-up in the
outflow pair plasma. These longer time scales are also characteristic for the
development of transverse hydromagnetic turbulence from the plateaued electrons
and protons. This hydromagnetic turbulence upstream and downstream is crucial
for diffusive shock acceleration to operate at external or internal shocks
associated with pair outflows.Comment: A&A in pres
Particle acceleration in thick parallel shocks with high compression ratio
We report studies on first-order Fermi acceleration in parallel modified
shock waves with a large scattering center compression ratio expected from
turbulence transmission models. Using a Monte Carlo technique we have modeled
particle acceleration in shocks with a velocity ranging from nonrelativistic to
ultrarelativistic and a thickness extending from nearly steplike to very wide
structures exceeding the particle diffusion length by orders of magnitude. The
nonrelativistic diffusion approximation is found to be surprisingly accurate in
predicting the spectral index of a thick shock with large compression ratio
even in the cases involving relativistic shock speeds.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted to A&
Particle scattering in turbulent plasmas with amplified wave modes
High-energy particles stream during coronal mass ejections or flares through the plasma of the solar wind. This causes instabilities, which lead to wave growth at specific resonant wave numbers, especially within shock regions. These amplified wave modes influence the turbulent scattering process significantly. In this paper, results of particle transport and scattering in turbulent plasmas with excited wave modes are presented. The method used is a hybrid simulation code, which treats the heliospheric turbulence by an incompressible magnetohydrodynamic approach separately from a kinetic particle description. Furthermore, a semi-analytical model using quasilinear theory (QLT) is compared to the numerical results. This paper aims at a more fundamental understanding and interpretation of the pitch-angle scattering coefficients. Our calculations show a good agreement of particle simulations and the QLT for broad-band turbulent spectra; for higher turbulence levels and particle beam driven plasmas, the QLT approximation gets worse. Especially the resonance gap at μ = 0 poses a well-known problem for QLT for steep turbulence spectra, whereas test-particle computations show no problems for the particles to scatter across this region. The reason is that the sharp resonant wave-particle interactions in QLT are an oversimplification of the broader resonances in test-particle calculations, which result from nonlinear effects not included in the QLT. We emphasise the importance of these results for both numerical simulations and analytical particle transport approaches, especially the validity of the QLT.
Appendices A-D are available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.or
Injection of thermal and suprathermal seed particles into coronal shocks of varying obliquity
Context.
Diffusive shock acceleration in the solar corona can accelerate solar energetic particles to very high energies. Acceleration
efficiency is increased by entrapment through self-generated waves, which is highly dependent on the amount of accelerated particles. This, in turn, is determined by the efficiency of particle injection into the acceleration process.
Aims.
We present an analysis of the injection efficiency at coronal shocks of varying obliquity.We assessed injection through reflection and downstream scattering, including the effect of a cross-shock potential. Both quasi-thermal and suprathermal seed populations were analysed. We present results on the effect of cross-field diffusion downstream of the shock on the injection efficiency.
Methods.
Using analytical methods, we present applicable injection speed thresholds that were compared with both semi-analytical flux integration and Monte Carlo simulations, which do not resort to binary thresholds. Shock-normal angle θBn and shock-normal velocity Vs were varied to assess the injection efficiency with respect to these parameters.
Results.
We present evidence of a significant bias of thermal seed particle injection at small shock-normal angles. We show that downstream isotropisation methods affect the θBn-dependence of this result. We show a non-negligible effect caused by the crossshock potential, and that the effect of downstream cross-field diffusion is highly dependent on boundary definitions.
Conclusions.
Our results show that for Monte Carlo simulations of coronal shock acceleration a full distribution function assessment with downstream isotropisation through scatterings is necessary to realistically model particle injection. Based on our results, seed particle injection at quasi-parallel coronal shocks can result in significant acceleration efficiency, especially when combined with varying field-line geometry
Patients with Special Needs: Dental Students’ Educational Experiences, Attitudes, and Behavior
Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153644/1/jddj002203372011751tb05018x.pd
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