Related papers: Relativistic particle acceleration in developing A…
Relativistic current sheets have been proposed as the sites of dissipation in pulsar winds, jets in active galaxies and other Poynting-flux dominated flows. It is shown that the steady versions of these structures differ from their…
Magnetic reconnection is a primary driver of particle acceleration processes in space and astrophysical plasmas. Understanding how particles are accelerated and the resulting particle energy spectra is among the central topics in…
The ubiquitous turbulence in astrophysical plasmas is important for both magnetic reconnection and reconnection acceleration. We study the particle acceleration during fast 3D turbulent reconnection with reconnection-driven turbulence.…
The dispersion characteristics of an circularly polarized electromagnetic wave of arbitrary amplitude, propagating in a highly (thermally and kinematically) relativistic plasma, are shown to approach those of a linear wave in an…
We examine Fermi-type acceleration at relativistic shocks, and distinguish between the initial boost of the first shock crossing cycle, where the energy gain per particle can be very large, and the Fermi process proper with repeated shock…
In turbulent magnetized plasmas, charged particles can be accelerated to high energies through their interactions with the turbulent motions. As they do so, they draw energy from the turbulence, possibly up to the point where they start…
Turbulent high-energy astrophysical systems often feature asymmetric energy injection: for instance, Alfven waves propagating from an accretion disk into its corona. Such systems are "imbalanced": the energy fluxes parallel and…
We consider the stochastic acceleration of particles which results from resonant interactions with plasma waves in black hole magnetospheres. We calculate acceleration rates and escape time scales for protons and electrons resonating with…
Nonlinear, relativistic longitudinal waves with sub-luminal phase velocity $v_p$ are the basis of plasma-based electron accelerators. For such application, key properties of the wave are the maximum or ``wave breaking'' amplitude and the…
We present evidence that relativistic shocks propagating in unmagnetized plasmas can self-consistently accelerate particles. We use long-term two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to study the well-developed shock structure in…
Magnetic reconnection is invoked as one of the primary mechanisms to produce energetic particles. We employ large-scale three-dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell simulations of reconnection in magnetically-dominated ($\sigma=10$) pair plasmas…
Particles ejected from the Sun that stream through the surrounding plasma of the solar wind are causing instabilities. These generate wavemodes in a certain frequency range especially within shock regions, where particles are accelerated.…
The wave instability acts in astrophysical plasmas to redistribute energy and momentum in the absence of frequent collisions. There are many different types of waves, and it is important to quantify the wave energy density and growth rate…
Shear flows, ubiquitous in space and astrophysical plasmas, can accelerate particles through turbulence excited by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. We present the first numerical study of particle acceleration in non-relativistic,…
Magnetic reconnection in strongly magnetized astrophysical plasma environments is believed to be the primary process for fast energy release and particle energization. Currently there is strong interest in relativistic magnetic…
The physics of particle acceleration in turbulent plasmas is a topic of broad interest, which is making rapid progress thanks to dedicated, large-scale numerical experiments. The first part of this paper presents an effective theory of…
The theoretical prediction that magnetic reconnection spontaneously drives turbulence has been supported by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and kinetic simulations. While reconnection with externally driven turbulence is accepted as an effective…
Using bifurcation theory on a dynamical system simulating the interaction of a particle with an obliquely propagating wave in relativistic regimes, we demonstrate that uniform acceleration arises as a consequence of Hopf bifurcations of…
We study motion of a relativistic charged particle in a plane slow electromagnetic wave and background uniform magnetic field. The wave propagates normally to the background field. Under certain conditions, the resonance between the wave…
This article introduces a physically realistic model for explaining how electromagnetic waves can be internally generated, propagate and interact in strongly magnetized plasmas or in nuclear magnetic resonance experiments. It studies high…