Kinetic Simulations of Nonrelativistic Perpendicular Shocks of Young Supernova Remnants. II. Influence of Shock-surfing Acceleration on Downstream Electron Spectra

We explore electron preacceleration at high-Mach-number nonrelativistic perpendicular shocks at, e.g., young supernova remnants, which are a prerequisite of further acceleration to very high energies via diffusive shock acceleration. Using fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of shocks and ele...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2019-11, Vol.885 (1), p.10
Main Authors: Bohdan, Artem, Niemiec, Jacek, Pohl, Martin, Matsumoto, Yosuke, Amano, Takanobu, Hoshino, Masahiro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceleration
Activation
Astrophysics
Electron mass
Electrons
Interstellar medium
Mass ratios
Particle in cell technique
Shocks
Simulation
Space plasmas
Supernova
Supernova remnants
Surfing
Weibel instability
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Summary:We explore electron preacceleration at high-Mach-number nonrelativistic perpendicular shocks at, e.g., young supernova remnants, which are a prerequisite of further acceleration to very high energies via diffusive shock acceleration. Using fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of shocks and electron dynamics in them, we investigate the influence of shock-surfing acceleration (SSA) at the shock foot on the nonthermal population of electrons downstream of the shock. The SSA is followed by further energization at the shock ramp where the Weibel instability spawns a type of second-order Fermi acceleration. The combination of these two processes leads to the formation of a nonthermal electron population, but the importance of SSA becomes smaller for larger ion-to-electron mass ratios in the simulation. We discuss the resulting electron spectra and the relevance of our results to the physics of systems with real ion-to-electron mass ratios and fully three-dimensional behavior.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ab43cf