Acceleration of Heavy Ions at Non-Relativistic Collisionless Shocks
Damiano Caprioli, Luca Orusa, Miha Cernetic, Colby C. Haggerty, Bricker Ostler
Published: 2025/9/9
Abstract
We investigate the process of Diffusive Shock Acceleration (DSA) of particles with mass number to charge number ratios $A/Q > 1$, e.g., partially-ionized heavy ions. To this end, we introduce helium- and carbon-like ions at solar abundances into two-dimensional hybrid (kinetic ions--fluid electrons) simulations of non-relativistic collisionless shocks. This study yields three main results: 1) Heavy ions are preferentially accelerated compared to hydrogen. For typical solar abundances, the energy transferred to accelerated helium ions is comparable to, or even exceeds, that of hydrogen, thereby enhancing the overall shock acceleration efficiency. 2) Accelerated helium ions contribute to magnetic field amplification, which increases the maximum attainable particle energy and steepen the spectra of accelerated particles. 3) The efficient acceleration of helium significantly enhances the production of hadronic gamma rays and neutrinos, likely dominating the one due to hydrogen. These effects should be taken into account, especially when modeling strong space and astrophysical shocks.