Acceleration of Pickup Ions between the Magnetically-Connected Corotating Interaction Regions

Abstract:

We perform hybrid simulations to investigate the acceleration process of pickup ions (PUIs) at corotating interaction regions (CIRs) bounded by forward and reverse shocks. It has conventionally been supposed that PUIs accelerate in the direction of the motional electric field along the shock surface via a shock-drift or shock-surfing process. In contrast, we identify a different process that the efficient PUI acceleration takes place in the field-aligned component, as long as the magnetic field is oblique to the shock. This is due to the magnetic mirror effect at the shock, indicating adiabatic acceleration. The PUIs accelerated via this process are reflected back toward the shock upstream. These reflected energetic PUIs can move back and forth along the magnetic field between a pair of CIRs that are magnetically connected. The PUIs are repeatedly accelerated in each reflection, leading to a maximum energy gain close to 100 keV. The results are partly consistent with the observations recently reported by Wu et al. (2014). Furthermore, this mechanism well accounts for the "preacceleration" for the generation of ACRs.