Study of time evolution of the bend-over energy in the energetic particle spectrum at a parallel shock

Abstract

Shock acceleration is considered one of the most important mechanisms for the acceleration of astrophysical energetic particles. In this work, we calculate the trajectories of a large number of test charged particles accurately in a parallel shock with magnetic turbulence. We investigate the time evolution of the accelerated-particle energy spectrum in the downstream of the shock in order to understand the acceleration mechanism of energetic particles. From simulation results we obtain power-law energy spectra with a bend-over energy, $E_0$, increasing with time. With the particle mean acceleration time and mean momentum change during each cycle of the shock crossing from diffusive shock acceleration model (following Drury), a time-dependent differential equation for the maximum energy, $E_{acc}$, of particles accelerated at the shock, can be approximately obtained. We assume the theoretical bend-over energy as $E_{acc}$. It is found that the bend-over energy from simulations agrees well with the theoretical bend-over energy using the non-linear diffusion theory, NLGCE-F, in contrast to that using the classic quasi-linear theory (QLT).

22 pages, 6 figures and 2 table