Electron Firehose Instabilities in High-$β$ ICM shocks

Abstract

The preacceleration of electrons through reflection and shock drift acceleration (SDA) is essential for the diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) of nonthermal electrons in collisionless shocks. Previous studies suggested that, in weak quasi-perpendicular ($Q_\perp$) shocks in the high-$β$ ($β=P_{\rm gas}/P_{\rm B}$) intracluster medium (ICM), the temperature anisotropy due to SDA-reflected electrons can drive the electron firehose instability, which excites oblique nonpropagating waves in the shock foot. In this paper, we investigate, through a linear analysis and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, the firehose instabilities driven by an electron temperature anisotropy (ETAFI) and also by a drifting electron beam (EBFI) in $β\sim100$ ICM plasmas. The EBFI should be more relevant in describing the self-excitation of upstream waves in $Q_\perp$-shocks, since backstreaming electrons in the shock foot behave more like an electron beam rather than an anisotropic bi-Maxwellian population. We find that the basic properties of the two instabilities, such as the growth rate, $γ$, and the wavenumber of fast-growing oblique modes are similar in the ICM environment, with one exception; while the waves excited by the ETAFI are nonpropagating ($ω_r=0$), those excited by the EBFI have a non-zero frequency ($ω_r\neq0$). However, the frequency is small with $ω_r<γ$. Thus, we conclude that the interpretation of previous studies for the nature of upstream waves based on the ETAFI remains valid in $Q_\perp$-shocks in the ICM.