Energetic particle transport across the mean magnetic field: before diffusion

TL;DR

This study investigates the initial non-diffusive phase of energetic particle transport across magnetic fields in turbulent plasmas, revealing a slow decoupling from field lines before reaching diffusive behavior, which impacts solar energetic particle modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a new technique to quantify the transition from field-aligned propagation to diffusion, highlighting the significance of the pre-diffusive phase in SEP transport modeling.

Findings

Particles remain near their initial field lines for tens to hundreds of Larmor periods.

Decoupling from initial field lines occurs over hundreds to thousands of Larmor periods.

Pre-diffusive phase lasts hours to tens of hours, affecting SEP propagation models.

Abstract

Current particle transport models describe the propagation of charged particles across the mean field direction in turbulent plasmas as diffusion. However, recent studies suggest that at short time-scales, such as soon after solar energetic particle (SEP) injection, particles remain on turbulently meandering field lines, which results in non-diffusive initial propagation across the mean magnetic field. In this work, we use a new technique to investigate how the particles are displaced from their original field lines, and quantify the parameters of the transition from field-aligned particle propagation along meandering field lines to particle diffusion across the mean magnetic field. We show that the initial decoupling of the particles from the field lines is slow, and particles remain within a Larmor radius from their initial meandering field lines for tens to hundreds of Larmor periods, for 0.1-10 MeV protons in turbulence conditions typical of the solar wind at 1~AU. Subsequently, particles decouple from their initial field lines and after hundreds to thousands of Larmor periods reach time-asymptotic diffusive behaviour consistent with particle diffusion across the mean field caused by the meandering of the field lines. We show that the typical duration of the pre-diffusive phase, hours to tens of hours for 10 MeV protons in 1~AU solar wind turbulence conditions, is significant for SEP propagation to 1~AU and must be taken into account when modelling SEP propagation in the interplanetary space.