Stochastic acceleration of large M/Q ions by hydrogen cyclotron waves in the magnetosphere

Abstract

It is shown that in hydrogen dominated multi‐ion plasmas supporting coherent hydrogen cyclotron waves, the minority ion species with large M/Q are preferentially accelerated and the maximum energy achieved scales as (M/MH+)5/3. The importance of this scaling to O+ acceleration in the auroral zones and to other high energy heavy ion observations in the earth's and Jupiter's magnetospheres is discussed.

Energization of ionospheric ions by electrostatic hydrogen cyclotron waves

“…The minority ions were initially characterized by a Maxwellian temperature which was varied from T H /I0 to 10T H , Such a temperature variation is expected in the topside polar ionosphere based on both experimental and theoretical grounds (Maier and Hoffman, 1974;Holzer et al, 1971;Raitt et al, 1975Raitt et al, , 1977Raitt et al, , 1978. The parameters given by equation (3) are the same as those used by Papadopoulos et al (1980), except for the value of kll . These authors assumed a purely perpendicular propagation for the EHC wave.…”

“…In fusion research plasma heating by coherent waves is getting considerable attention; it is now well established that the interaction of charge particles with coherent waves of large enough amplitudes can heat the plasma particles [Smith and Kaufman, 1978;Fakuyama et al, 1977;Karney, 1972;Abe et al, 1980]. Recently, Papadopoulos et al [1980] applied the results of Karney to ionospheric; ions to predict a very large heating for 0+ ions and a relatively moderate heating of He:+-ions by an EHC wave. The purpose of this letter' is to present a summary of a detailed investigation in which interactions of several types of ions with EHC waves were studied numerically.…”

A search for the plasma processes associated with perpendicular ion heating

“…acceleration by ES ion cyclotron waves (Palmadesso et al, 19714;Lysak et al, 1980;Papadopoulos et al, 1980;Dusenbery and Lyons, 1981;Singh, 1981; Ashour- Okuda and Ashour-Abdalla, 1981), acceleration by ES lower hybrid (LH) waves (Chang and Coppi, 1981), and acceleration by narrow oblique potential jumps (Yang and Kan, 1983;Greenspan and Whipple, 1982).…”

Ionospheric ion acceleration by multiple electrostatic waves

“…We do not have to resort, as in previous theories, to searching for mechanisms that generate low-phase-velocity waves of substantial electric field amplitude which can then interact with the ambient O + distribution function [Retterer et al, 1986]. The phenomenon of nonlinear coherent energization does not exist for ion dynamics in a single wave [Fukuyama et al, 1977;Karney and Bets, 1977;Karney, 1978;Papadopoulos et al, 1980;Lysak, 1986] or in any quasi-linear description of wave-particle interactions [Retterer et al, 1986].…”