  The scattering of electrons by heat-flux-driven whistler waves is explored
with a particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation relevant to the transport of energetic
electrons in flares. The simulation is initiated with a large heat flux that is
produced using a kappa distribution of electrons with positive velocity and a
cold return current beam. This system represents energetic electrons escaping
from a reconnection-driven energy release site. This heat flux system drives
large amplitude oblique whistler waves propagating both along and against the
heat flux, as well as electron acoustic waves. While the waves are dominantly
driven by the low energy electrons, including the cold return current beam, the
energetic electrons resonate with and are scattered by the whistlers on time
scales of the order of a hundred electron cyclotron times. Peak whistler
amplitudes of $\tilde{B} / B_{0} \sim 0.125$ and angles of $\sim 60 \degree$
with respect to the background magnetic field are observed. Electron
perpendicular energy is increased while the field-aligned electron heat flux is
suppressed. The resulting scattering mean-free-paths of energetic electrons are
small compared with the typical scale size of energy release sites in flares,
which might lead to the effective confinement of energetic electrons that is
required for the production of very energetic particles.
