Particle Acceleration in the Heliosphere

Extract

The heliosphere could be divided in three major acceleration Laboratories, the solar surface (Laboratory 1), the interplanetary medium (Laboratory 2) and Earth and Planetary magnetospheres (Laboratory 3). Our understanding of the acceleration process depends strongly on the nature of the drivers and the energy dissipation process. The energy gain by a particle with velocity where is the variation of the electric field in space and time. All three Laboratories mentioned above share a common characteristic, the drivers and the energy dissipation processes are closely connected to fully developed MHD turbulence. We can show that our understanding of particle acceleration depends strongly on the interaction of particles with fields resulting from fully developed MHD turbulence.