Understanding the Impact of Instabilities on the Particle Energization in Collisionless Shocks

Understanding the kinetic mechanisms and instabilities present in collisionless shocks is critical to examining particle energization in the local heliosphere and in the galaxy at large. Using the field-particle correlation technique and the novel instability isolation method, we have developed tools for understanding phase-space energization of individual mechanisms in hybrid PIC simulations of moderately supercritical quasi-perpendicular and oblique shocks. The instability isolation method is used to separate out individual mechanisms present in simulations of shocks and has had success with isolating and identifying the wave launched by the corrugation instability, which ripples the surface of shocks. We use the field-particle correlation technique with this isolated mode to produce velocity-space signatures of the instability that show the transfer of energy between fields and particles in phase-space due to just the instability itself. Here, we use linear Vlasov-Maxwell theory to predict these velocity-space signatures of the instability. Making successful predictions using linear theory is desired to solidify our understanding of the transfer of energy in the full six dimensions of phase-space.