Generation of the energetic proton and electron bursts in planetary magnetotails

Abstract

The paper deals with the unified model of particle acceleration (both electrons and protons) in the planetary magnetotaft due to explosive spontaneous reconnection. It is shown that the inductive electric field is able to generate energetic particle bursts. The proposed mechanism accelerates both species up to MeV energies in the Earth's magnetosphere (but with the electron flux much lower than the proton flux) and vice versa (practically only electrons) in the case of the compact magnetosphere of Mercury. The theory conforms with the experimental data obtained thus far in the terrestrial and Hermean magnetotails. Ambrosiano et al. [1988] the authors have made the numerical simulation at the particle acceleration in the course of the turbulent resistive MHD reconnection. Recently, in the papers by Eraker and Simpson [1986] and magnetosphere usually is accomplished by separate "quanta" of Baker et al. [1985], observations of energetic particle bursts in the magnetosphere of Mercury have been reported. The spacecraft Mariner 10 registered accelerated electron bursts with

Detailed Observations of a Burst of Energetic Particles in the Deep Magnetotail by Geotail

“…the growth rate of the responsible plasma instability (Sarafopoulos and Sarris, 1988). A number of model calculations of the acceleration of particles by the inductive electric field produced by an explosive magnetic perturbation have provided results in agreement with the above IVD observations Zelenyi, 1988, 1990;Zelenyi et al, 1990).…”

Nonthermal particles and photons in starburst regions and superbubbles

“…Rapid reconnection of magnetic fields of different topologies may happen in spontaneous current sheets or be due to an external driving force (see, e.g., Zweibel and Yamada 2009). Mechanisms of direct acceleration of charged particles by the reconnecting magnetic field were studied in detail both analytically and numerically (see, e.g., Zelenyi et al 1990, Hoshino 2005, Birn and Priest 2007, Drake et al 2006, Pritchett 2006, Lazarian and Opher 2009, Artemyev et al 2013, Birn et al 2012.…”

Preferential acceleration of heavy ions in the reconnection outflow region

“…Thus, particle motion is stable. In contrast, acceleration in the X-line region is unstable, and the corresponding particles trajectories should escape from the region of acceleration after a certain time interval Δt (Bulanov & Sasorov 1976;Galeev 1979;Zelenyi et al 1990). This interval strongly depends on particle mass Δt ∼ Ω −2/3 0 .…”

“…There are several numerical and analytical investigations of ion heating in the vicinity of the X-line and in the outflow region (e.g., Zelenyi et al 1990;Lottermoser et al 1998;Litvinenko 2003;Anastasiadis et al 2008;Zharkova & Agapitov 2009). The main problem of such models corresponds to the transient nature of the magnetic reconnection, where a X-line type magnetic field configuration with strong electric fields exists only at a limited time interval.…”