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Electron acceleration and formation of power-law spectra of energetic electrons during the merging process of multiple magnetic islands: particle-in-cell simulations

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Abstract

Magnetic reconnection is considered to be one important source to produce energetic electrons. In this paper, two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are performed to investigate electron acceleration during the merging process of multiple magnetic islands in a current sheet with a strong guide field. Due to the existence of the strong guide field, we can analyze the contributions of the parallel electric field, Fermi, and betatron mechanisms to the electron acceleration with the guiding-center theory. During the coalescence process of magnetic islands, the islands merge each other continuously until only one large island remains. Energetic electrons are generated during such process, and the electrons with sufficient high energy develop a power-law spectrum. We also investigate the dependence of the index of the power-law spectra on the shape of magnetic islands, electron plasma beta, the number of magnetic islands, and the guide field.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NSFC grant 41527804, 41774169, and Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS(QYZDJ-SSW-DQC010). Simulations were performed on TH-1A at National Super-Computer Center in Tianjin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Lab of Geospace Environment, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Yu Liu, Quanming Lu, Rongsheng Wang, Kai Huang, Huanyu Wang & Shui Wang

  2. CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology, Hefei, China

    Yu Liu, Quanming Lu, Rongsheng Wang, Kai Huang, Huanyu Wang & Shui Wang

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  1. Yu Liu
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  2. Quanming Lu
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  3. Rongsheng Wang
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  6. Shui Wang
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Correspondence to Quanming Lu or Rongsheng Wang.

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Liu, Y., Lu, Q., Wang, R. et al. Electron acceleration and formation of power-law spectra of energetic electrons during the merging process of multiple magnetic islands: particle-in-cell simulations. Astrophys Space Sci 364, 109 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-019-3598-9

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