Speaker
Description
Understanding the conditions conducive to particle acceleration at collisionless, non-relativistic shocks, like those of supernova remnants, is important to unveil the origin of cosmic rays. We use hybrid (kinetic ions—fluid electrons) kinetic simulations to investigate particle acceleration and magnetic field amplification at non-relativistic, weakly magnetized, quasi-perpendicular shocks. So far, no self-consistent kinetic simulation has reported non-thermal tails at quasi-perpendicular shocks. Unlike 2D simulations, 3D runs show that protons develop a non-thermal tail spontaneously. They are rapidly accelerated via shock drift acceleration up to a maximum energy determined by their escape upstream. We discuss the implications of our results for the phenomenology of heliospheric shocks, supernova remnants, and radio supernovae.
