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The effect of stochastic re-acceleration on the energy spectrum of shock-accelerated protons




TekijätAlexandr Afanasiev, Rami Vainio, Leon Kocharov

KustantajaIOP PUBLISHING LTD

KustannuspaikkaUniversity of Chicago

Julkaisuvuosi2014

JournalAstrophysical Journal

Tietokannassa oleva lehden nimiASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

Lehden akronyymiASTROPHYS J

Artikkelin numero36

Vuosikerta790

Numero1

Sivujen määrä10

ISSN0004-637X

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/790/1/36


Tiivistelmä

The energy spectra of particles in gradual solar energetic particle (SEP) events do not always have a power-law form attributed to the diffusive shock acceleration mechanism. In particular, the observed spectra in major SEP events can take the form of a broken (double) power law. In this paper, we study the effect of a process that can modify the power-law spectral form produced by the diffusive shock acceleration: the stochastic re-acceleration of energetic protons by enhanced Alfvenic turbulence in the downstream region of a shock wave. There are arguments suggesting that this process can be important when the shock propagates in the corona. We consider a coronal magnetic loop traversed by a shock and perform Monte Carlo simulations of interactions of shock-accelerated protons with Alfven waves in the loop. The wave-particle interactions are treated self-consistently, so the finiteness of the available turbulent energy is taken into account. The initial energy spectrum of particles is taken to be a power law. The simulations reveal that the stochastic re-acceleration leads either to the formation of a spectrum that is described in a wide energy range by a power law (although the resulting power-law index is different from the initial one) or to a broken power-law spectrum. The resulting spectral form is determined by the ratio of the energy density of shock-accelerated protons to the wave energy density in the shock's downstream region.




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