Computation of diffusive shock acceleration using stochastic differential equations

TL;DR

This paper develops a stochastic differential equation approach to model diffusive shock acceleration of cosmic particles, validating it for various shock conditions and applying it to multiple shocks to explain observed astrophysical spectra.

Contribution

It introduces an implicit SDE numerical scheme for shock acceleration, extending applicability to thin shocks and modeling multiple shocks with realistic spectral features.

Findings

Implicit scheme extends SDE applicability to thin shocks

Reproduces flat energy distributions from multiple shocks

Explains flat/inverted spectra in quasars and galactic centers

Abstract

The present work considers diffusive shock acceleration at non-relativistic shocks using a system of stochastic differential equations (SDE) equivalent to the Fokker-Planck equation. We compute approximate solutions of the transport of cosmic particles at shock fronts with a SDE numerical scheme. The momentum gain is given by implicit calculations of the fluid velocity gradients using a linear interpolation between two consecutive time steps. We validate our procedure in the case of single shock acceleration with different shock thickness, with or without synchrotron losses. A comparative discussion of implicit and explicit schemes for different shock thickness shows that implicit calculations extend the range of applicability of SDE schemes to infinitely thin 1D shocks. The method is then applied to multiple shock acceleration for a system of identical shocks which free parameters are the distance between two consecutive shocks, the synchrotron losses time and the escape time of the particles. The stationary distribution reproduces quite well the flat differential logarithm energy distribution produced by multiple shock effect, and also the piling-up effect due synchrotron losses at a momentum where they equilibrate the acceleration rate. At higher momenta particle losses dominate and the spectrum drops. The competition between acceleration and loss effects leads to a pile-up shaped distribution which appears to be effective only in a restrict range of inter-shock distances of 10-100 diffusion lengths. We finally compute the optically thin synchrotron spectrum produced such periodic pattern which can explain flat and/or inverted spectra observed in Flat Radio spectrum Quasars and in the galactic centre.