Shock Drift Acceleration of Electrons

Abstract

We review the theory of shock drift acceleration, developing the theory in detail for gyrophaseaveraged particles. It is shown howboth the upstream and downstream velocity spaces separate into different regions according to the interaction of the particles with the shock (reflection, transmission, head-on, overtaking). The effects of the cross-shock electric field and of the magnetic overshoot are discussed. The effectiveness of acceleration is estimated for Maxwellian and power law distributions. The condition for a beam instability to be generated by reflected particles is determined and found to be independent of the distribution function for isotropic inflowing electrons.