Kinetic Heating by Alfve′n Waves in magnetic Shears

With first-principles kinetic simulations, we show that a large-scale Alfve ' n wave (AW) propagating in an inhomogeneous background decays into kinetic Alfve ' n waves (KAWs), triggering ion and electron energization. We demonstrate that the two species can access unequal amounts of the initial AW energy, experiencing differential heating. During the decay process, the electric field carried by KAWs produces non-Maxwellian features in the particle velocity distribution functions, in accordance with space observations. The process we present solely requires the interaction of a large-scale AW with a magnetic