ENERGY-SPECTRUM OF PARTICLES ACCELERATED NEAR A MAGNETIC X-LINE

We study the acceleration of test particles near a static magnetic x line with a uniform electric field and a strong component of the magnetic field, B parallel-to, parallel to the x line. The energy spectrum of the accelerated particles is found analytically in the nonrelativistic limit, showing good agreement with numerical simulations. At high energies, the spectrum decays exponentially with a characteristic energy very different from that found in studies assuming B parallel-to = 0.