Injection Process of Pickup Ion Acceleration at an Oblique Heliospheric Termination Shock

Abstract

The injection process of pickup ion acceleration at a heliospheric termination shock is investigated. Using two-dimensional fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulation, accelerated pickup ions are self-consistently reproduced by tracking long time evolution of shocks with an unprecedentedly large system size in the shock normal direction. Reflected pickup ions drive upstream large-amplitude waves through resonant instabilities. Convection of the large-amplitude waves causes shock surface reformation and alters the downstream electromagnetic structure. A part of pickup ions are accelerated to tens of upstream flow energy in the timescale of ∼100 times inverse ion gyrofrequency. The initial acceleration occurs through the shock surfing acceleration (SSA) mechanism followed by the shock drift acceleration mechanism. Large electrostatic potential accompanied by the upstream waves enables the SSA to occur.

Keywords

• Heliosphere