Plasma acceleration by the non-linear interaction of three crossed parallel Alfvén wave packets

Khalil Daiffallah, CRAAG, Observatoire d'Alger

We are doing numerical simulation with a (PIC) code to interact a parallel Alfvén wave packet with two another parallel Alfvén wave packets that have already interacted. The crossing of the two initial Alfvén waves generates density gradients in the plasma (APAWI process, Mottez (2012, 2015)). Then, the passage of the third Alfvén wave across this interaction region gives rise to powerful accelerated electron beams in the parallel direction through phase-mixing process. The efficiency of this process depends substantially on the polarity and the amplitude of the wave packets.