Strong ion acceleration by a collisionless magnetosonic shock wave propagating perpendicularly to a magnetic field

Abstract

A 2 1/2 ‐dimension, fully relativistic, fully electromagnetic particle code is used to study the time evolution of a nonlinear magnetosonic pulse propagating in a direction perpendicular to a magnetic field. The pulse is excited by an instantaneous piston acceleration, and evolves in a totally self‐consistent manner. A large amplitude pulse traps some ions and accelerates them parallel to the wave front. They are detrapped when their velocities become of the order of the sum of the E×B drift velocity and the wave phase velocity, where E is the electric field in the direction of the wave propagation. The pulse develops into a quasishock wave in a collisionless plasma because of dissipation caused by the resonant ion acceleration. A simple nonlinear wave theory for a cold plasma describes the shock properties observed in the simulation except for the effects of resonant ions. In particular, the magnitude of an electric potential across the shock region is derived analytically and is found to be in good agreement with our simulations. The potential jump is proportional to B², and hence the E×B drift velocity of the trapped ions is proportional to B.