Study of the cascading effect during the acceleration and heating of ions in the solar wind

We have developed a quasilinear theory to understand the energy cascade suggested by Gomberoff et al. (2004), in which there is a transfer of wave energy from long to short wave modes, with the subsequent acceleration and heating of ions, in the case of circularly polarized electromagnetic waves propagating along the magnetic field. For the case of background protons, and small concentration of α-particlesα-particles, numerical results show that for an initial spectrum concentrated at low frequency, there is perpendicular and parallel heating of protons and α-particlesα-particles. Due to energy conservation, this effect occurs at the expense of wave energy. Also, in an energy cascade effect, it is observed that the appearance of modes is at frequencies higher than in the initial spectrum.

Research highlights
► Quasilinear theory for the transfer of energy between particles and waves in plasmas.
► Energy cascade effect in the electromagnetic energy spectrum.
► Appearance of modes at frequencies higher than that of the initial modes.
► Perpendicular and parallel heating of drifting protons and He++ ions.