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Electron acceleration in the dipolarization front driven by magnetic reconnection
Author(s) -
Huang Can,
Wu Mingyu,
Lu Quanming,
Wang Rongsheng,
Wang Shui
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1002/2014ja020918
Subject(s) - betatron , physics , acceleration , electron , atomic physics , particle acceleration , perpendicular , computational physics , front (military) , magnetic reconnection , particle in cell , magnetic field , nuclear physics , classical mechanics , geometry , quantum mechanics , meteorology , mathematics
A large‐scale two‐dimensional (2‐D) particle‐in‐cell simulation is performed in this paper to investigate electron acceleration in the dipolarization front (DF) region during magnetic reconnection. It is found that the DF is mainly driven by an ion outflow which also generates a positive potential region behind the DF. The DF propagates with an almost constant speed and gets growing, while the electrons in the DF region can be highly energized in the perpendicular direction due to betatron acceleration. For the first time, we reveal that there exists a velocity threshold; only the electrons below the threshold can be trapped by the parallel electric potential in the DF region and then energized by betatron acceleration.