Particle diffusion and acceleration in magnetorotational instability turbulence

Abstract

ABSTRACT Hot accretion flows contain collisionless plasmas that are believed to be capable of accelerating particles to very high energies, as a result of turbulence generated by the magnetorotational instability (MRI). We conduct unstratified shearing-box simulations of the MRI turbulence in ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), and inject energetic relativistic test particles in simulation snapshots to conduct a detailed investigation on particle diffusion and stochastic acceleration. We consider different amount of net vertical magnetic flux, with sufficiently high resolution to resolve the gyro-radii (Rg) of most particles. Particles with large Rg (≳ 0.03 disc scale height H) show spatial diffusion coefficients of ∼30 and ∼5 times Bohm values in the azimuthal and poloidal directions, respectively. We further measure particle momentum diffusion coefficient D(p) by applying the Fokker–Planck equation, finding that contribution from turbulent fluctuations scales as D(p) ∝ p, and shear acceleration takes over when Rg ≳ 0.1H, characterized by D(p) ∝ p3. For particles with smaller Rg (≲ 0.03H), their spatial diffusion coefficients roughly scale as ∼p−1, and show evidence of D(p) ∝ p2 scaling in momentum diffusion but with large uncertainties. We find that multiple effects contribute to stochastic acceleration/deceleration, and the process is likely affected by intermittency in the MRI turbulence. We also discuss the potential of accelerating PeV cosmic rays in hot accretion flows around supermassive black holes.