Journal
PHYSICS OF PLASMAS
Volume 24, Issue 6, Pages -Publisher
AIP Publishing
DOI: 10.1063/1.4985302
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Funding
- NASA [NNX14AC68G]
- NSF GEM [1405166]
- DoD, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship [32 CFR 168a]
- Department of Energy's Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF) [DE-FG02-97ER25308]
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Div Atmospheric & Geospace Sciences [1405166] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- NASA [685427, NNX14AC68G] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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Previous work has shown that Fermi acceleration can be an effective heating mechanism during magnetic island coalescence, where electrons may undergo repeated reflections as the magnetic field lines contract. This energization has the potential to account for the power-law distributions of particle energy inferred from observations of solar flares. Here, we develop a generalized framework for the analysis of Fermi acceleration that can incorporate the effects of compressibility and non-uniformity along field lines, which have commonly been neglected in previous treatments of the problem. Applying this framework to the simplified case of the uniform flux tube allows us to find both the power-law scaling of the distribution function and the rate at which the power-law behavior develops. We find that a guide magnetic field of order unity effectively suppresses the development of power-law distributions. Published by AIP Publishing.
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