Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Chen, L.-J.
• Wang, S.
• Wilson, L. B., III
• Schwartz, S.
• Bessho, Naoki
• Moore, T.
• Gershman, D.
• Giles, B.
• Wilder, F. D.
• Ergun, R. E.
• Hesse, M.
• Lai, H.
• Russell, C.
• Strangeway, R.
• Torbert, R. B.
• F.-Vinas, A.
• Burch, J.
• Lee, S.
• Pollock, C.
• Dorelli, J.
• Paterson, W.
• Ahmadi, N.
• Goodrich, K.
• Lavraud, B.
• Le Contel, O.
• Khotyaintsev, Yu V.
• Lindqvist, P.-A.
• Boardsen, S.
• Wei, h.
• Le, A.
• Avanov, L.

Titel

Electron Bulk Acceleration and Thermalization at Earth's Quasiperpendicular Bow Shock

Ist Teil von

• Physical review letters, 2018-05, Vol.120 (22), p.225101-225101, Article 225101

Ort / Verlag

Goddard Space Flight Center: American Physical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

American Physical Society Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Electron heating at Earth's quasiperpendicular bow shock has been surmised to be due to the combined effects of a quasistatic electric potential and scattering through wave-particle interaction. Here we report the observation of electron distribution functions indicating a new electron heating process occurring at the leading edge of the shock front. Incident solar wind electrons are accelerated parallel to the magnetic field toward downstream, reaching an electron-ion relative drift speed exceeding the electron thermal speed. The bulk acceleration is associated with an electric field pulse embedded in a whistler-mode wave. The high electron-ion relative drift is relaxed primarily through a nonlinear current-driven instability. The relaxed distributions contain a beam traveling toward the shock as a remnant of the accelerated electrons. Similar distribution functions prevail throughout the shock transition layer, suggesting that the observedacceleration and thermalization is essential to the cross-shock electron heating.