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On magnetic field amplification and particle acceleration near non-relativistic astrophysical shocks: particles in MHD cells simulations.

Authors :
van Marle, Allard Jan
Casse, Fabien
Marcowith, Alexandre
Source :
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; Jan2018, Vol. 473 Issue 3, p3394-3409, 16p
Publication Year :
2018

Abstract

We present simulations of magnetized astrophysical shocks taking into account the interplay between the thermal plasma of the shock and suprathermal particles. Such interaction is depicted by combining a grid-based magnetohydrodynamics description of the thermal fluid with particle in cell techniques devoted to the dynamics of suprathermal particles. This approach, which incorporates the use of adaptive mesh refinement features, is potentially a key to simulate astrophysical systems on spatial scales that are beyond the reach of pure particle-in-cell simulations. We consider in this study non-relativistic shocks with various Alfvénic Mach numbers and magnetic field obliquity. We recover all the features of both magnetic field amplification and particle acceleration from previous studies when the magnetic field is parallel to the normal to the shock. In contrast with previous particle-in-cell-hybrid simulations, we find that particle acceleration and magnetic field amplification also occur when the magnetic field is oblique to the normal to the shock but on larger time-scales than in the parallel case. We show that in our simulations, the suprathermal particles are experiencing acceleration thanks to a pre-heating process of the particle similar to a shock drift acceleration leading to the corrugation of the shock front. Such oscillations of the shock front and the magnetic field locally help the particles to enter the upstream region and to initiate a non-resonant streaming instability and finally to induce diffuse particle acceleration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00358711
Volume :
473
Issue :
3
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
127044829
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx2509