Jaehong Park, Chuang Ren, Jared C. Workman, Eric G. Blackman
Low Mach number, high beta fast mode shocks can occur in the magnetic reconnection outflows of solar flares. These shocks, which occur above flare loop tops, may provide the electron energization responsible for some of the observed hard X-rays and contemporaneous radio emission. Here we present new 2D particle-in-cell simulations of low Mach number/high beta quasi-perpendicular shocks. The simulations show that electrons above a certain energy threshold experience shock-drift-acceleration. The transition energy between the thermal and non-thermal spectrum and the spectral index from the simulations are consistent with some of the X-ray spectra from RHESSI in the energy regime, $E\lesssim 40\sim 100$ keV. Plasma instabilities associated with the shock structure such as the modified-two-stream and the electron whistler/mirror instabilities are examined and compared with the numerical solutions of the kinetic dispersion relations.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.5654
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