Proton and heavy ion acceleration by stochastic fluctuations in the Earth's magnetotail

Abstract

Abstract. Spacecraft observations show that energetic ions are found in the Earth's magnetotail, with energies ranging from tens of keV to a few hundreds of keV. In this paper we carry out test particle simulations in which protons and other ion species are injected in the Vlasov magnetic field configurations obtained by Catapano et al. (2015). These configurations represent solutions of a generalized Harris model, which well describes the observed profiles in the magnetotail. In addition, three-dimensional time-dependent stochastic electromagnetic perturbations are included in the simulation box, so that the ion acceleration process is studied while varying the equilibrium magnetic field profile and the ion species. We find that proton energies of the order of 100 keV are reached with simulation parameters typical of the Earth's magnetotail. By changing the ion mass and charge, we can study the acceleration of heavy ions such as He+ +  and O+, and it is found that energies of the order of 100–200 keV are reached in a few seconds for He+ + , and about 100 keV for O+.