2009/09/03 by J. Vranjes, S. Poedts · 20 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Acceleration #Dust and Plasma Wave Phenomena #Electric field #Field (mathematics) #Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics #Magnetic energy #Magnetic field #Particle acceleration #Perpendicular #Plasma #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Solar wind #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15612.x
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 400(4), 2147-2152 (Oxford University Press) · To appear in MNRAS
arxiv created 2009/09/03 · openalex publication_date 2009/10/12 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The electrostatic instabilities driven by the gradients of the density, temperature and magnetic field are discussed in their application to solar magnetic structures. Strongly growing modes are found for some typical plasma parameters. These instabilities (i) imply the presence of electric fields that can accelerate the plasma particles in both perpendicular and parallel directions with respect to the magnetic field vector, and (ii) can stochastically heat ions. The perpendicular acceleration is to the leading order determined by the E×B drift acting equally on both ions and electrons, while the parallel acceleration is most effective on electrons. The experimentally confirmed stochastic heating is shown to act mainly in the direction perpendicular to the magnetic field vector and acts stronger on heavier ions. The energy release rate and heating may exceed for several orders of magnitude the value accepted as necessary for a self-sustained heating in the solar corona. The energy source for both the acceleration and the heating is stored in the mentioned background gradients.