Related papers: Fermi Acceleration at relativistic Shocks
One of the main features of astrophysical shocks is their ability to accelerate particles to extremely high energies. The leading acceleration mechanism, the diffusive shock acceleration is reviewed. It is demonstrated that its efficiency…
Fermi acceleration is the process of energy transfer from massive objects in slow motion to light objects that move fast. The model for such process is a time-dependent Hamiltonian system. As the parameters of the system change with time,…
Shocks in astrophysical fluids can generate suprathermal particles by first order (or diffusive) Fermi acceleration. In the test particle regime there is a simple relation between the spectrum of the accelerated particles and the jump…
We perform a numerical-simulation study of the acceleration of electrons at shocks that propagate through a prespecified, kinematically defined turbulent magnetic field. The turbulence consists of broadband magnetic fluctuations that are…
The rate at which particles are accelerated by the first-order Fermi mechanism in shocks depends on the angle, \teq{\Tbone}, that the upstream magnetic field makes with the shock normal. The greater the obliquity the greater the rate, and…
The stability of a Fermi liquid is analyzed by summing series of diagrams with an interaction mediated by a system close to quantum criticality. The critical temperature and the gap are derived in terms of an effective coupling constant and…
We consider the acceleration of charged particles near ultra-relativistic shocks, with Lorentz factor Gamma_s >> 1. We present simulations of the acceleration process and compare these with results from semi-analytical calculations. We show…
Foreshock transients upstream of Earth's bow shock have been recently observed to accelerate electrons to many times their thermal energy. How such acceleration occurs is unknown, however. Using THEMIS case studies, we examine a subset of…
We introduce and study a new class of fronts in finite particle number reaction-diffusion systems, corresponding to propagating up a reaction rate gradient. We show that these systems have no traditional mean-field limit, as the nature of…
In this first paper of a series dedicated to the microphysics of unmagnetized, relativistic collisionless pair shocks, we discuss the physics of the Weibel-type transverse current filamentation instability (CFI) that develops in the shock…
The empirical velocity of a reaction-diffusion front, propagating into an unstable state, fluctuates because of the shot noises of the reactions and diffusion. Under certain conditions these fluctuations can be described as a diffusion…
We give a new coherent description of the first-order Fermi acceleration of particles in shock waves from the point of view of stochastic process of the individual particles, under the test particle approximation. The time development of…
We propose that non-thermal electrons are efficiently accelerated by first-order Fermi process at the fast shock, as a natural consequence of the new magnetohydrodynamic picture of the flaring region revealed with Yohkoh. An oblique fast…
Relativistic outflows (jets) of matter are commonly observed from systems containing black holes. The strongest outflows occur in the radio-loud systems, in which the accretion disk is likely to have an advection-dominated structure. In…
Particle acceleration at plasma shocks appears to be ubiquitous in the universe, spanning systems in the heliosphere, supernova remnants, and relativistic jets in distant active galaxies and gamma-ray bursts. This review addresses some of…
Electron acceleration to non-thermal energies is known to occur in low Mach number (M<5) shocks in galaxy clusters and solar flares, but the electron acceleration mechanism remains poorly understood. Using two-dimensional (2D)…
Relativistic particle acceleration in collisionless shocks of supernova remnants is accompanied by magnetic field amplification from cosmic ray (CR) driven plasma instabilities. Bell's fast CR-current instability is predicted to produce…
The theory of particle acceleration at shock fronts is briefly reviewed, with special emphasis on the production of the particles responsible for the nonthermal emission from blazars. The flat radio/IR spectra of these sources cannot be…
We investigate front propagation in a reacting particle system in which particles perform scale-free random walks known as Levy flights. The system is described by a fractional generalization of a reaction-diffusion equation. We focus on…
Context. Converging flows with strong magnetic fields of different polarity can accelerate particles through magnetic reconnection. If the particle mean free path is longer than the reconnection layer is thick, but much shorter than the…