Shock Acceleration in the Intracluster Medium: Implications of Micromirror Confinement

TL;DR

This paper explores how plasma-scale magnetic structures called micromirrors can confine cosmic rays in galaxy clusters, enabling efficient shock acceleration and consistent gamma-ray observations without requiring magnetic field amplification.

Contribution

It demonstrates that micromirror-induced scattering sets a lower limit on maximum proton energy and incorporates this effect into cosmological simulations of galaxy clusters.

Findings

Micromirrors enforce a minimum proton energy of ~100 GeV.

Simulations with micromirrors match gamma-ray observational constraints.

Micromirror confinement allows efficient particle acceleration without magnetic amplification.

Abstract

Merging galaxy clusters exhibit strong observational evidence for efficient particle acceleration in the intracluster medium (ICM), particularly in the form of synchrotron-emitting radio relics and halos. Cosmic ray (CR) electrons are likely accelerated (or re-accelerated) at merger and accretion shocks via diffusive shock acceleration (DSA). However, in the presence of the large diffusion coefficients one would naively expect in the rarefied, relatively unmagnetized ICM, this acceleration--in particular, the maximum proton energy ($E_{\rm max}$)--is limited by long acceleration times. On the other hand, recent work on CR transport suggests that the diffusion coefficient can be suppressed in ICM-like environments. In this picture, deviations from local thermodynamic equilibrium can trigger the mirror instability, creating plasma-scale magnetic structures, or "micromirrors," that efficiently scatter CRs. In this paper, we investigate the implications of micromirror confinement for shock acceleration in the ICM. We demonstrate that micromirrors enforce a minimum value of $E_{\rm max} \gtrsim 100$ GeV that does not rely on CR-driven magnetic field amplification. We also discuss micromirror confinement in the context of cosmological simulations and $\gamma$-ray observations, and present a simulation of a Coma-like merging cluster that self-consistently includes CR acceleration at shocks, with an effective diffusion coefficient set by micromirrors. We show that the introduction of micromirrors yields simulated galaxy clusters that remain consistent with $\gamma$-ray observations.