Nonlinear Landau Damping of Alfven Waves and the Production and Propagation of Cosmic Rays

Abstract

The existence of hydromagnetic waves (waves whose frequency ω is less than the ion gyrofrequency Ω. = eB/m_ic) in a collisionless magnetized plasma with ß, the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure, much greater than unity is required in theories for Fermi acceleration of cosmic rays by converging scattering centres at a shock front (Axford et al. 1977, Bell 1978, Blandford and Ostriker 1978), in theories for the adiabatic cooling of cosmic rays due to trapping by plasma instabilities in an expanding supernova remnant (Kulsrud and Zweibel 1975, Schwartz and Skilling 1978) and in theories for resonant scattering of cosmic rays by hydromagnetic waves in the hot phase of the interstellar medium (Holman et al. 1979). Hydromagnetic waves may be damped by thermal ion cyclotron damping for wavenumbers k≳Ω_i/v_i, where v_i = (T_i/m_i)^1/2 is the average thermal ion speed, and by linear Landau damping for non-zero angles of propagation with respect to the ambient magnetic field B (Foote and Kulsrud 1979). Damping by both these processes is strong in a high-ß plasma where there are many particles travelling at the phase speed of the waves. Hydromagnetic waves propagating along B may be damped by nonlinear wave-particle interactions, the most important of which is thermal ion Landau damping of the beat wave of two Alfvén waves. This nonlinear process has the effect of transferring energy from the waves to the particles and can therefore be considered as a damping process for the waves.