Bounded Surfatron Acceleration in the Presence of Random Fluctuations

Abstract

The mechanisms of acceleration and transport of collisionless plasma in the presence of electromagnetic turbulence (EMT) still remains not fully understood. The particle-EMT interaction can be modelled as the interaction of the particle with a particular wave in the presence of random noise. It has been shown that in such a model the acceleration of the charged particles can be almost free. This effect is known as resonance, which can be explained by the so-called “surfatron” mechanism. We have conducted several numerical simulations for the models with and without the presence of EMT. The turbulence has been modeled as small random fluctuations on the background magnetic field. Particles dynamics consist of two regimes of motion: (i) almost free (Larmor) rotation and (ii) captured (resonance) propagation, which are given by two different sets of invariants. We have determined the necessary conditions for capture and release from resonance for the model without fluctuations, as well as the intrinsic structure of the initial conditions domain for particles in order to be captured. We observed a difference in the orders of magnitude of the dispersion of adiabatic invariant due to the effects of the added fluctuations at the resonance. These results are important to describe the mixing of the different energy levels in the presence of EMT. To understand the impact of the EMT on the system dynamics, we have performed statistical analysis of the effects that different characteristics of the random fluctuations have on the system. The particles' energy gain can be viewed as a random walk over the energy levels, which can be described in terms of the diffusion partial differential equation for the probability distribution function. This problem can be reverse-engineered to understand the nature and structure of the EMT, knowing beforehand the energy distribution of a set of particles.