Premium
Ponderomotive acceleration of ions by circularly polarized electromagnetic waves
Author(s) -
Lee Nam C.,
Parks George K.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/96gl00157
Subject(s) - physics , acceleration , electric field , ion , electromagnetic radiation , ponderomotive force , magnetic field , electromagnetic field , computational physics , atomic physics , quantum electrodynamics , optics , classical mechanics , quantum mechanics
The ponderomotive acceleration of multi‐species ions due to circularly polarized electromagnetic waves propagating parallel to the magnetic field is calculated. When applied to a low frequency left‐hand circularly polarized wave, the results show differential accelerations among the different ion species. We demonstrate that differential acceleration of ion species by the ponderomotive force can occur even in the absence of a parallel electric field component. Our work extends the results previously obtained by Li and Temerin (1993) who considered the ponderomotive acceleration due to obliquely propagating Alfvén waves.