Stochastic acceleration of charged particle in nonlinear wave field

Possibility of stochastic acceleration of charged particle by nonlinear waves is investigated. Spatially regular (SR) and spatiotemporal chaotic (STC) wave solutions evolving from saddle steady wave are tested as the fields. In the non-steady SR field the particle is finally trapped by the wave and averagely gains its group velocity, while in the STC field the particle motion displays trapped-free phases with its averaged velocity larger or smaller than the group velocity depending on the charge sign. A simplified model is established to investigate the acceleration mechanism. By analogy with motor protein, it is found that the virtual pattern of saddle steady wave plays a role of asymmetric potential, which and the nonlinear varying perturbation wave are the two sufficient ingredients for the acceleration in our case. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.