Visualizing Electron Acceleration in Simulations of Collisionless Shocks

Abstract

Particles accelerated to high energies, such as cosmic rays, are ubiquitous within the universe. We study electron acceleration in particle in cell simulations of quasi-perpendicular, non-relativistic collisionless shocks. We develop methods for visualizing acceleration in three dimensions using the program Paraview. We study reflectivity of the shock depending on time and correlations between location of reflection and the structure of the shock. We calculate a reflectivity of roughly 1% in the two-dimensional simulations, and find that roughly 6% of the particles are non-thermal. We visualize reflected particles undergoing shock drift acceleration and examine where they are interacting with the shock when they reflect.