Particle Acceleration in an Evolving Network of Unstable Current Sheets

Vlahos, Loukas, Heinz Isliker, and Fabio Lepreti, Particle Acceleration in an Evolving Network of Unstable Current Sheets, ApJ, 608, 540-553 (2004) (ADS)

The cartoon

(click on the image for a larger version)

Here particles flit back and forth between Unstable Current Sheets (UCSs), gaining energy appropriately. Each UCS would have an "associated effective DC electric field", not described in detail. There is a much-cited cartoon in which ideas within this genre may have first appeared. This basic physics presumably follows one of the original Fermi plans for particle acceleration.

      Often researchers appeal to sub-telescopic physics, and why not when there's no direct observational constraint? In this case there's a certain vagueness about where and when the mechanism works, considering the global development of a flare. Some cartoons have tried to hint at this by distributing bubbles, random arrows, or cross-hatching in strategic corners of the process.

Date: 2019 December 05