The Role of Whistler and Ion Cyclotron Waves in Particle Escape from Mirror Modes in the Intracluster Medium

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Hauptverfasser: Ugarov, Petr, Ley, Francisco, Zweibel, Ellen
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Ugarov, Petr
Ley, Francisco
Zweibel, Ellen
author_facet Ugarov, Petr
Ley, Francisco
Zweibel, Ellen
contents Electron and ion-cyclotron waves are well known to exist in solar system plasmas but their existence and importance in galaxy clusters is an open question. Guided by numerical simulations, (Ley et al. (2024)) argued that whistlers (electron-cyclotron) and ion-cyclotron (IC) waves are generated by trapped particles in mirror modes in the nonlinear stages of the mirror instability under ICM conditions. Building on this work, we construct a novel particle propagation simulation of the ICM plasma based on the static electromagnetic field configuration from the fully kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation of the nonlinear mirror instability by (Ley et al. (2024)). We study how the trapping rate of particles is related to the secondary waves driven by mirror modes. We observe that secondary whistlers and IC waves enhance trapped particle escape from mirror modes. We measure the particle-wave scattering rate by whistlers and IC waves, demonstrate that the scattering rates and wave amplitudes follow the proportionality relation expected from quasilinear theory, and show the existence of a significant correlation between scattering rates and the excitation of secondary instabilities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_26387
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Role of Whistler and Ion Cyclotron Waves in Particle Escape from Mirror Modes in the Intracluster Medium
Ugarov, Petr
Ley, Francisco
Zweibel, Ellen
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Plasma Physics
Electron and ion-cyclotron waves are well known to exist in solar system plasmas but their existence and importance in galaxy clusters is an open question. Guided by numerical simulations, (Ley et al. (2024)) argued that whistlers (electron-cyclotron) and ion-cyclotron (IC) waves are generated by trapped particles in mirror modes in the nonlinear stages of the mirror instability under ICM conditions. Building on this work, we construct a novel particle propagation simulation of the ICM plasma based on the static electromagnetic field configuration from the fully kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation of the nonlinear mirror instability by (Ley et al. (2024)). We study how the trapping rate of particles is related to the secondary waves driven by mirror modes. We observe that secondary whistlers and IC waves enhance trapped particle escape from mirror modes. We measure the particle-wave scattering rate by whistlers and IC waves, demonstrate that the scattering rates and wave amplitudes follow the proportionality relation expected from quasilinear theory, and show the existence of a significant correlation between scattering rates and the excitation of secondary instabilities.
title The Role of Whistler and Ion Cyclotron Waves in Particle Escape from Mirror Modes in the Intracluster Medium
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Plasma Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.26387