Ch_V-4_Tr_Accel.doc.docVIP

Fermi Acceleration (1st Order) Jones Ellison Chapter 3.2-3.3 With the shock-drift acceleration we arrive at an ordered deterministic acceleration process that works at quasi-perpendicular shocks. As we have indicated before there is also another not so well ordered non-deterministic process, but with certain advantages over the shock drift process. We see immediately 2 shortcomings of the shock drift process: 1) After one encounter with the shock (how many crossings during the gyrations within 1 rci of the shock doesnt matter and is counted as one shock encounter) the particle escapes. So all energization is finished in one step. 2) At the parallel shock, where we see the most persistent and strongest energetic upstream particle distributions (diffusions) nothing should happen. This is true in principle, but the magnetic field is not as smooth as indicated in the schematic sketches. Magnetic fluctuations (Alfvén waves in essence, whose generation we will touch upon later) scatter the ions and bring them back to the shock. This initiates another cycle of the same process, or in the case of the parallel shock it allows the reflection across the shock at all. From this simple picture we can see that the gain of momentum in 1 cycle is The ultimate energy (or momentum) gain of the ions is determined by the compression ratio and the probability that they are turned around again towards the shock. Let us now assume that both far enough upstream and downstream the pitch angle scattering manages to make the ion distribution isotropic in the nest frame of the flow shock isotropic isotropic v Vsw VD Situation for diffusive shock acceleration. Because the particles cross the shock (a discontinuity in u) they do not match the isotropic distribution when they come from the shock (transmitted or reflected). In principle, we have to compute the full distribu