Stochastic instabilities are studied considering the motion of one particle in a very high intensity wave propagating along a constant homogeneous magnetic field, and in a high intensity wave propagating in a nonmagnetized medium perturbed by one or two low intensity traveling waves. Resonances are identified and conditions for resonance overlap are studied. The part of chaos in the electron acceleration is analyzed. PIC code simulation results confirm the stochastic heating.

In the first part, the theoretical model of the stochastic heating effect is presented briefly. Then, a numerical resolution of the Hamilton equations highlights the threshold of the stochastic effect. Finally, Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code simulations results, for experimentally relevant parameters, are presented in order to confirm the acceleration mechanism predicted by the one-particle theoretical model. This paper gives the conditions on the different experimental parameters in order to have an optimization of the stochastic heating.

Stochastic instabilities are studied considering the motion of one particle in a very high intensity wave perturbed by one or two low intensity traveling waves. Resonances are identified and conditions for resonance overlap are studied. PIC code simulation results confirm the stochastic heating.This paper was presented at the 28th ECLIM conference in Rome, Italy.