High-energy ions produced by two approaching flow fronts in the magnetotail

Abstract:

During a substorm event in 2009, THEMIS probes observed high-energy (≲ 1MeV) ions and characteristic time evolution of the differential flux. The high-energy ions seem to be produced in the magnetotail, but existing acceleration theories cannot explain the production of such high-energy ions due to the limitation of dawn-dusk (DD) flow scale. We propose that if two approaching flow fronts exist simultaneously in the magnetotail, the production of high-energy ions can be achieved. Namely, some ideal ions are repeatedly reflected by the two fronts and accelerated to high energies, exceeding the energy-limit given by the product of the duskward electric field and DD scale length of the flows. In addition, this acceleration model similar to “first-order Fermi acceleration” can produce the observed differential flux change.

We have analytically calculated the energy-gain of each ion between two approaching flow fronts, and roughly estimated the efficiency of the acceleration and the spectrum change. In order to include the DD flow scale, we have further performed a spatially 1-D (2-D in velocity) test particle simulation where a couple of flow fronts approach each other. Using the simulation, we have confirmed the production of high-energy ions as well as the change of the energy spectrum of ions associated with the acceleration. The simulation result shows that high-energy ions can be produced with shorter DD scale length compared to that of the simple acceleration for trapped particles in the flow front. If we assume that the DD scale length of the flow is 10Re, the simulated ion maximum energy near 1MeV and differential flux change are similar to those of the observation. This scale length is less than half of the length needed for the product with the duskward electric field to produce 1MeV ions. This estimated 10Re flow scale in that event does not contradict previous studies.