The Roles of Fluid Compression and Shear in Electron Energization during Magnetic Reconnection

Li, Xiaocan; Guo, Fan; Li, Hui; Birn, Joachim

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aaacd5

Title: The Roles of Fluid Compression and Shear in Electron Energization during Magnetic Reconnection

Journal Article · Fri Mar 09 00:00:00 EST 2018 · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaacd5· OSTI ID:1463496

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Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); New Mexico Consortium, Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Space Science Inst., Boulder, CO (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Particle acceleration in space and astrophysical reconnection sites is an important unsolved problem in studies of magnetic reconnection. Earlier kinetic simulations have identified several acceleration mechanisms that are associated with particle drift motions. Here, we show that, for sufficiently large systems, the energization processes due to particle drift motions can be described as fluid compression and shear, and that the shear energization is proportional to the pressure anisotropy of energetic particles. By analyzing results from fully kinetic simulations, we show that the compression energization dominates the acceleration of high-energy particles in reconnection with a weak guide field, and the compression and shear effects are comparable when the guide field is 50% of the reconnecting component. Spatial distributions of those energization effects reveal that reconnection exhausts, contracting islands, and island-merging regions are the three most important regions for compression and shear acceleration. This study connects particle energization by particle guiding-center drift motions with that due to background fluid motions, as in the energetic particle transport theory. It provides foundations for building particle transport models for large-scale reconnection acceleration such as those in solar flares.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); New Mexico Consortium, Los Alamos, NM (United States); Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); LANL Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396; SC0018240; NNH16AC60I

OSTI ID:: 1463496

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-18-21317; TRN: US1902308

Journal Information:: The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 855, Issue 2; ISSN 1538-4357

Publisher:: Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 47 works

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