Electron heating in a perpendicular collisionless shock

A model is proposed to explain the observed electron heating in perpendicular collisionless shock waves. This relies on trapping of the electrons by the turbulent electric field to modify their orbits in such a way that they gain energy from the steady potential jump across the shock. With simple assumptions about the nature of this trapping, reasonable agreement with the experimentally observed heating is obtained. In addition, the model provides qualitative agreement with a number of other experimental observations.