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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0The Astrophysical Journal

Can Magnetic Reconnection Accelerate Energetic Particles in the Heliosheath?

  • Jeongbhin Seo1
  • Teresa Boland1,2
  • Fan Guo1,3
  • Xiaocan Li1
  • Giulia Murtas4
4 affiliations
  1. 1Los Alamos National Laboratory
  2. 2Purdue University
  3. 3New Mexico Consortium
  4. 4West Virginia University
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Abstract

The mechanism for accelerating energetic particles in the outer heliosphere is still under debate. The termination shock, turbulence, and magnetic reconnection have all been proposed as viable mechanisms. We investigate compression-driven particle acceleration during magnetic reconnection in the heliospheric current sheet using the MHD–SDE framework that incorporates energetic particle feedback into the MHD evolution. For the heliosheath conditions considered here, we find that reconnection-driven acceleration is inefficient downstream of the termination shock, whereas reconnection near the heliopause can generate stronger compression and produce a power-law differential intensity spectrum J ( ε ) ∝ ε −5.4 . However, even the hardest spectrum achieved during magnetic reconnection remains much steeper than the typical J ( ε ) ∝ ε −1.5 spectrum observed in the heliosheath. This indicates that magnetic reconnection alone is insufficient to explain the acceleration of energetic particles in the heliosheath.

Versions

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{seo2026magnetic,
  title = {{Can Magnetic Reconnection Accelerate Energetic Particles in the Heliosheath?}},
  author = {Jeongbhin Seo and Teresa Boland and Fan Guo and Xiaocan Li and Giulia Murtas},
  journal = {The Astrophysical Journal},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/aeb2ed},
  url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aeb2ed},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Can Magnetic Reconnection Accelerate Energetic Particles in the Heliosheath?
AU  - Jeongbhin Seo
AU  - Teresa Boland
AU  - Fan Guo
AU  - Xiaocan Li
AU  - Giulia Murtas
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/06
JO  - The Astrophysical Journal
DO  - 10.3847/1538-4357/aeb2ed
UR  - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aeb2ed
AB  - The mechanism for accelerating energetic particles in the outer heliosphere is still under debate. The termination shock, turbulence, and magnetic reconnection have all been proposed as viable mechanisms. We investigate compression-driven particle acceleration during magnetic reconnection in the heliospheric current sheet using the MHD–SDE framework that incorporates energetic particle feedback into the MHD evolution. For the heliosheath conditions considered here, we find that reconnection-driven acceleration is inefficient downstream of the termination shock, whereas reconnection near the heliopause can generate stronger compression and produce a power-law differential intensity spectrum J ( ε ) ∝ ε −5.4 . However, even the hardest spectrum achieved during magnetic reconnection remains much steeper than the typical J ( ε ) ∝ ε −1.5 spectrum observed in the heliosheath. This indicates that magnetic reconnection alone is insufficient to explain the acceleration of energetic particles in the heliosheath.
SN  - 1538-4357
SN  - 0004-637X
ER  -