Non adiabatic electron behavior through a supercritical perpendicular collisionless shock: Impact of the shock front turbulence

Philippe Savoini (1) , Bertrand Lembège (2)

1 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas
2 HELIOS - LATMOS

Adiabatic and nonadiabatic electrons transmitted through a supercritical perpendicular shock wave are analyzed with the help of test particle simulations based on field components issued from 2 − D full-particle simulation. A previous analysis (Savoini et al., 2005) based on 1 − D shock profile, including mainly a ramp (no apparent foot) and defined at a fixed time, has identified three distinct electron populations: adiabatic, overadiabatic, and underadiabatic, respectively, identified by μds/μus ≈ 1, >1 and <1, where μus and μds are the magnetic momenta in the upstream and downstream regions. Presently, this study is extended by investigating the impact of the time evolution of 2 − D shock front dynamics on these three populations. Analysis of individual time particle trajectories is performed and completed by statistics based on the use of different upstream velocity distributions (spherical shell of radius vshell and a Maxwellian with thermal velocity vthe). In all statistics, the three electron populations are clearly recovered. Two types of shock front nonstationarity are analyzed. First, the impact of the nonstationarity along the shock normal (due to the front self-reformation only) strongly depends on the values of vshell or vthe. For low values, the percentages of adiabatic and overadiabatic electrons are almost comparable but become anticorrelated under the filtering impact of the self-reformation; the percentage of the underadiabatic population remains almost unchanged. In contrast, for large values, this impact becomes negligible and the adiabatic population alone becomes dominant. Second, when 2 − D nonstationarity effects along the shock front (moving rippling) are fully included, all three populations are strongly diffused, leading to a larger heating; the overadiabatic population becomes largely dominant (and even larger than the adiabatic one) and mainly contributes to the energy spectrum.

Mots clés: Collisionless shock; Electron; Non adiabatic behavior; Space Plasma Physics; Shock waves

Domaines: Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]; Physique Atmosphérique et Océanique [physics.ao-ph]

Philippe Savoini, Bertrand Lembège. Non adiabatic electron behavior through a supercritical perpendicular collisionless shock: Impact of the shock front turbulence. Journal of Geophysical Research Space Physics, 2010, 115 (A11), pp.A11103. ⟨10.1029/2010JA015381⟩. ⟨hal-00534223⟩