Perpendicular ion acceleration in whistler turbulence
- Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Furocho, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8601 (Japan)
- Faculty of Human Development, University of Toyama, 3190, Toyama 930-8555 (Japan)
Whistler turbulence is an important contributor to solar wind turbulence dissipation. This turbulence contains obliquely propagating whistler waves at electron scales, and these waves have electrostatic components perpendicular to the mean magnetic field. In this paper, a full kinetic, two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation shows that whistler turbulence can accelerate ions in the direction perpendicular to the mean magnetic field. When the ions pass through wave-particle resonances region in the phase space during their cyclotron motion, the ions are effectively accelerated in the perpendicular direction. The simulation results suggest that whistler turbulence contributes to the perpendicular heating of ions observed in the solar wind.
- OSTI ID:
- 22253298
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 21, Issue 4; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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