Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 765, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/765/2/147
Keywords
acceleration of particles; instabilities; methods: numerical; plasmas; shock waves; Sun: flares
Categories
Funding
- NSF [PHY-0903797]
- DOE [DE-FG02-06ER54879, DE-FC52-08NA28302]
- NSFC [11129503]
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Physics [903797] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Low Mach number, high beta fast mode shocks can occur in the magnetic reconnection outflows of solar flares. These shocks, which occur above flare loop tops, may provide the electron energization responsible for some of the observed hard X-rays and contemporaneous radio emission. Here we present new two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of low Mach number/high beta quasi-perpendicular shocks. The simulations show that electrons above a certain energy threshold experience shock-drift-acceleration. The transition energy between the thermal and non-thermal spectrum and the spectral index from the simulations are consistent with some of the X-ray spectra from RHESSI in the energy regime of E less than or similar to 40 similar to 100 keV. Plasma instabilities associated with the shock structure such as the modified-two-stream and the electron whistler instabilities are identified using numerical solutions of the kinetic dispersion relations. We also show that the results from PIC simulations with reduced ion/electron mass ratio can be scaled to those with the realistic mass ratio.
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