Charged particle nonlinear resonance with localized electrostatic wave-packets

•Description of nonlinear resonances of charged particles and short wave-packets.•Operator approach for kinetic equation in plasma systems with multiple resonances.•Description of charged particle acceleration in the systems with multiple resonance wave modes. A resonant wave-particle interaction, in particular a nonlinear resonance characterized by particle phase trapping, is an important process determining charged particle energization in many space and laboratory plasma systems. Although an individual charged particle motion in the nonlinear resonance is well described theoretically, the kinetic equation modeling the long-term evolution of the resonant particle ensemble has been developed only recently. This study is devoted to generalization of this equation for systems with localized wave packets propagating with the wave group velocity different from the wave phase velocity. We limit our consideration to the Landau resonance of electrons and waves propagating in an inhomogeneous magnetic field. Electrons resonate with the wave field-aligned electric fields associated with gradients of wave electrostatic potential or variations of the field-aligned component of the wave vector potential. We demonstrate how wave-packet properties determine the efficiency of resonant particle acceleration and derive the nonlocal integral operator acting on the resonant particle distribution. This operator describes particle distribution variations due to interaction with one wave-packet. We solve kinetic equation with this operator for many wave-packets and show that solutions coincide with the results of the numerical integration of test particle trajectories. To demonstrate the range of possible applications of the proposed approach, we consider the electron evolution induced by the Landau resonances with packets of kinetic Alfven waves, electron acoustic waves, and very oblique whistler waves in the near-Earth space plasma.