Irregular proton injection to high energies at interplanetary shocks

How thermal particles are accelerated to suprathermal energies is an unsolved issue, crucial for many astrophysical systems. We report novel observations of irregular, dispersive enhancements of the suprathermal particle population upstream of a high-Mach number interplanetary shock. We interpret th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-10
Main Authors: Trotta, Domenico, Horbury, Timothy S, Lario, David, Vainio, Rami, Dresing, Nina, Dimmock, Andrew, Giacalone, Joe, Hietala, Heli, Wimmer-Schweingruber, Robert F, Berger, Lars, Liu, Yang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Mach number
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Summary:How thermal particles are accelerated to suprathermal energies is an unsolved issue, crucial for many astrophysical systems. We report novel observations of irregular, dispersive enhancements of the suprathermal particle population upstream of a high-Mach number interplanetary shock. We interpret the observed behavior as irregular "injections" of suprathermal particles resulting from shock front irregularities. Our findings, directly compared to self-consistent simulation results, provide important insights for the study of remote astrophysical systems where shock structuring is often neglected.
ISSN:2331-8422