FG: Particle Heating and Thermalization in Collisionless Shocks in the MMS Era

Dates: 2019 – 2024
Leaders: Lynn Wilson III, Li-Jen Chen, Katherine Goodrich, and Ivan Vasko
Research Areas: Primary – SWMI, Secondary – None

Topic

Particle heating and thermalization in collisionless shocks are important unsolved problems, because of the challenges to resolve the kinetic scales with past in-situ data and simulations. Further progress in modeling collisionless shocks and validating MHD, hybrid, and PIC simulations requires resolving particle heating and thermalization processes from the ion to electron kinetic scales. Understanding these processes to the level with predictive capabilities will advance simulations of collisionless shock waves and wave-particle interactions, whether occurring near-Earth or other regions of space. The broad goals of the FG are to address (1) the structure of the quasi-static electric fields in collisionless shocks and their role in particle heating, (2) waves/structures in collisionless shocks and their generation mechanisms, (3) contributions of quasi-static and high-frequency electric fields to particle heating and thermalization and (4) enabling advances of MHD, hybrid, and PIC simulations to model the Earth’s bow shock and magnetosheath plasma. We expect to have strong collaborations with other focus groups that study the phenomena sensitive to the solar wind input.

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