Particle acceleration by a collisionless shock wave and effects of instabilities driven by energetic particles

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24540535
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Plasma science
• Research Institution: National Institute for Fusion Science (2014); Nagoya University (2012-2013)
• Principal Investigator: MIEKO Toida 核融合科学研究所, ヘリカル研究部, 准教授 (00273219)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 無衝突衝撃波 / 粒子加速 / 不安定性 / 粒子シミュレーション

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Collisionless shock waves and particle acceleration are important issues in plasma physics and are believed to play essential roles in high-energy phenomena in astrophysical plasmas. We studied structure formation and particle acceleration in magnetosonic shock waves and effects of instabilities driven by accelerated particles. An oblique shock wave can trap and accelerate electrons to ultrarelativistic energies. We showed that instabilities driven by these electrons can cause detrapping and subsequent acceleration of electrons. We also studied formation of forward and reverse shock waves in an external magnetic field with attention to effects of modified two-stream instabilities. In addition, we constructed a theory for finite beta effects on nonlinear magnetosonic waves in a plasma containing electrons and multiple species of ionsa.

Free Research Field

プラズマ物理