Open AccessA one dimensional, electrostatic Vlasov model for the generation of suprathermal electron tails in solar wind conditions
Author(s) -
Califano F.,
Mangeney A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2007ja012841
Subject(s) - physics , solar wind , electron , distribution function , vlasov equation , computational physics , population , plasma , cascade , energy cascade , electric field , turbulence , mechanics , quantum mechanics , chemistry , demography , chromatography , sociology
Space and laboratory collisionless plasmas are most often out of local thermodynamic equilibrium. In particular, their charged particle velocity distributions usually differ from simple Maxwellian distributions and exhibit a great variety of anisotropies and components such as suprathermal beams and tails. Here we propose a new model responsible for a “local” origin of electron suprathermal tails. The model is based on adding a high and a low frequency external forcing to the Vlasov‐Poisson system of equations. The first one represents mainly the thermal noise electric field generated by charge separation effects. The second one represents the energy injection resulting from the energy cascade generated by the large scale fluid (MHD) turbulence. We find that in typical solar wind conditions, our model could be the base of a full three dimensional, electromagnetic model capable of explaining the local generation of the electron halo population observed on the electron distribution function.