Electron Scattering and Acceleration by Whistler Waves at Collisionless Shocks

Mitsuo Oka; Fumiko Otsuka; Shuichi Matsukiyo; Tai Phan; The MMS team

Presentation information

[E] Oral

P (Space and Planetary Sciences ) » P-EM Solar-Terrestrial Sciences, Space Electromagnetism & Space Environment

[P-EM16] Magnetospheric Multi Scale (MMS) mission: Accomplishments and Future Plans

convener:Yoshifumi Saito(Solar System Science Division, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), James L Burch(Southwest Research Institute), Barbara L Giles(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), Hiroshi Hasegawa(Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)

[PEM16-04] Electron Scattering and Acceleration by Whistler Waves at Collisionless Shocks

★Invited Papers

*Mitsuo Oka¹, Fumiko Otsuka², Shuichi Matsukiyo², Tai Phan¹, The MMS team (1.University of California Berkeley, 2.Kyushu University)

Keywords:shock, particle acceleration

Electrons are accelerated to non-thermal energies at shocks in space and astrophysical environments. While Shock Drift Acceleration (SDA) has been considered a key process of electron acceleration at collision-less shocks, it has also been recognized that SDA needs to be combined with an additional stochastic process to explain the observed power-law energy spectra. Here, we report observations of Earth’s bow shock by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission and present in-situ evidence of pitch-angle scattering of non-thermal electrons by whistler waves. As the solar activity picks up in the coming years, we anticipate conjunctive, simultaneous observations of interplanetary shocks by, for example, MMS and Geotail, enabling us to further advance our understanding of electron acceleration at shocks.