Nonthermal Electron Acceleration at Collisionless Quasi-perpendicular Shocks

TL;DR

This review explores recent advances in understanding nonthermal electron acceleration mechanisms at collisionless quasi-perpendicular shocks, focusing on stochastic shock drift acceleration, shock surfing acceleration, and Weibel-dominated shocks.

Contribution

It synthesizes recent observational and simulation results on electron acceleration mechanisms, highlighting progress and remaining questions in the field.

Findings

SSDA is a promising electron injection mechanism into DSA.

Fully 3D simulations confirm efficiency of SSA at high Mach shocks.

Magnetic reconnection within shocks may significantly contribute to electron acceleration.

Abstract

Shock waves propagating in collisionless heliospheric and astrophysical plasmas have been studied extensively over the decades. One prime motivation is to understand the nonthermal particle acceleration at shocks. Although the theory of diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) has long been the standard for cosmic-ray acceleration at shocks, plasma physical understanding of particle acceleration remains elusive. In this review, we discuss nonthermal electron acceleration mechanisms at quasi-perpendicular shocks, for which substantial progress has been made in recent years. The discussion presented in this review is restricted to the following three specific topics. The first is stochastic shock drift acceleration (SSDA), which is a relatively new mechanism for electron injection into DSA. The basic mechanism, related in-situ observations and kinetic simulations results, and how it is connected with DSA will be discussed. Second, we discuss shock surfing acceleration (SSA) at very high Mach number shocks relevant to young supernova remnants (SNRs). While the original proposal under the one-dimensional assumption is unrealistic, SSA has now been proven efficient by a fully three-dimensional kinetic simulation. Finally, we discuss the current understanding of the magnetized Weibel-dominated shock. Spontaneous magnetic reconnection of self-generated current sheets within the shock structure is an interesting consequence of Weibel-generated strong magnetic turbulence. We argue that high Mach number shocks with both Alfven and sound Mach numbers exceeding 20-40 will likely behave as a Weibel-dominated shock. Despite a number of interesting recent findings, the relative roles of SSDA, SSA, and magnetic reconnection for electron acceleration at collisionless shocks and how the dominant particle acceleration mechanisms change depending on shock parameters remain to be answered.