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تسجيل مستخدم جديدParticle acceleration at a reconnecting magnetic separator
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While the exact acceleration mechanism of energetic particles during solar flares is (as yet) unknown, magnetic reconnection plays a key role both in the release of stored magnetic energy of the solar corona and the magnetic restructuring during a flare. Recent work has shown that special field lines, called separators, are common sites of reconnection in 3D numerical experiments. To date, 3D separator reconnection sites have received little attention as particle accelerators. We investigate the effectiveness of separator reconnection as a particle acceleration mechanism for electrons and protons. We study the particle acceleration using a relativistic guiding-centre particle code in a time-dependent kinematic model of magnetic reconnection at a separator. The effect upon particle behaviour of initial position, pitch angle and initial kinetic energy are examined in detail, both for specific (single) particle examples and for large distributions of initial conditions. The separator reconnection model contains several free parameters and we study the effect of changing these parameters upon particle acceleration, in particular in view of the final particle energy ranges which agree with observed energy spectra.
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The aim of this work is to investigate and characterise particle behaviour in a 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of a reconnecting magnetic separator. We use a relativistic guiding-centre test-particle code to investigate electron and proton accele
ration in snapshots from 3D MHD separator reconnection experiments, and compare the results with findings from an analytical separator reconnection model studied in a previous investigation. The behaviour and acceleration of large distributions of particles are examined in detail for both analytical and numerical separator reconnection models. Accelerated particle orbit trajectories are shown to follow the separator before leaving the system along the separatrix surface of one of the nulls (determined by particle species) in the system of both models. A sufficiently localised electric field about the separator causes the orbits to appear to follow the spine bounding the separatrix surface field lines instead. We analyse and discuss the locations and spread of accelerated particle orbit final positions, which are seen to change over time in the numerical separator reconnection model. We deduce a simple relationship between the final energy range of particle orbits and the model dimensions, and discuss its implications for observed magnetic separators in the solar corona.
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tion, and particle acceleration and transport in kink-unstable twisted coronal loops, with a focus on the effects of resistivity, loop geometry and atmospheric stratification. Another aim is to perform forward-modelling of bremsstrahlung emission and determine the structure of hard X-ray sources. We use a combination of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and test-particle methods. First, the evolution of the kinking coronal loop is considered using resistive MHD model, incorporating atmospheric stratification and loop curvature. Then, the obtained electric and magnetic fields and density distributions are used to calculate electron and proton trajectories using a guiding-centre approximation, taking into account Coulomb collisions. It is shown that electric fields in twisted coronal loops can effectively accelerate protons and electrons to energies up to 10 MeV. High-energy particles have hard, nearly power-law energy spectra. The volume occupied by high-energy particles demonstrates radial expansion, which results in the expansion of the visible hard X-ray loop and a gradual increase in hard X-ray footpoint area. Synthesised hard X-ray emission reveals strong footpoint sources and the extended coronal source, whose intensity strongly depends on the coronal loop density.
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