Particle acceleration by interstellar plasma shock waves in non-uniform background magnetic field

ABSTRACT Particle acceleration by plasma shock waves is investigated for a magnetized plasma cloud propagating in a non-uniform background magnetic field by means of analytical and numerical calculations. The mechanism studied here is mainly, magnetic trapping acceleration (MTA) which is previously investigated for a cloud moving through the uniform interstellar magnetic field (IMF). In this work, the acceleration is studied for a cloud moving in an antiparallel background field with spatial variations along the direction of motion. For negative variation, the cloud moves towards an antiparallel magnetic field with an increasing intensity, the trapped particle moves to locations with higher convective electric field and therefore gains more energy over time. For positive variation, the background field decreases to zero and changes into a parallel field with an increasing intensity. It is concluded that, when the background field vanishes, the MTA mechanism ceases and the particle escapes into the space. This leads to a bouncing acceleration which further increases energy of the gyrating particle. The two processes are followed by a shock drift acceleration, where due to the background magnetic field gradient, the particle drifts along the electric field and gains energy. Although for positive variation, three different mechanisms are involved, energy gain is less than in the case of a uniform background field.