Related papers: Processes in current sheets responsible for fast e…
We outline transient quasi-magnetostatic phenomena associated with Weibel-type instabilities, mainly, the formation and decay of the current sheets and filaments. We consider a collisionless anisotropic plasma cloud with hot electrons…
Transfer of free energy from large to small velocity-space scales by phase mixing leads to Landau damping in a linear plasma. In a turbulent drift-kinetic plasma, this transfer is statistically nearly canceled by an inverse transfer from…
Collisionless shocks are ubiquitous in the Universe and are held responsible for the production of non-thermal particles and high-energy radiation. In the absence of particle collisions in the system, theoretical works show that the…
Magnetic reconnection plays a crucial role in powering solar flares, production of energetic particles, and plasma heating. However, where the magnetic reconnections occur, how and where the released magnetic energy is transported, and how…
When a laser field is incident on an overdense plasma it is unable to penetrate inside it. Nevertheless, a part of its energy gets transferred to the electrons through a variety of mechanisms (e.g. vacuum and $\vec{J}\times \vec{B}) heating…
Fast reconnection in magnetically dominated plasmas is widely invoked in models of dissipation in pulsar winds, gamma-ray flares in the Crab nebula, and to explain the radio nanoshots of pulsars. When current sheets evolve reaching a…
Pulsar Wind Nebulae, Blazars, Gamma Ray Bursts and Magnetars all contain regions where the electromagnetic energy density greatly exceeds the plasma energy density. These sources exhibit dramatic flaring activity where the electromagnetic…
Linear stability of a current sheet that is subject to an impulsive acceleration due to a shock passage is studied with the effect of guide magnetic field. We find that the current sheet embedded in relativistically magnetized plasma always…
High-energy astrophysical systems frequently contain collisionless relativistic plasmas that are heated by turbulent cascades and cooled by emission of radiation. Understanding the nature of this radiative turbulence is a frontier of…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in a plasma that facilitates the release of energy stored in the magnetic field by permitting a change in the magnetic topology. In this article we present a review of the current state of…
The relationship between a decaying strong turbulence and kinetic instabilities in a slowly expanding plasma is investigated using two-dimensional (2-D) hybrid expanding box simulations. We impose an initial ambient magnetic field…
It is shown that collisionless shock waves can be driven in unmagnetized electron-positron plasmas by performing a two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. At the shock transition region, strong magnetic fields are generated by a…
The instability of a monoenergetic electron beam in a collisional one-dimensional plasma bounded between grounded walls is considered both analytically and numerically. Collisions between electrons and neutrals are accounted for the plasma…
The onset and evolution of magnetic fields in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas is determined by several mechanisms, including instabilities, dynamo effects and ultra-high energy particle flows through gas, plasma and interstellar-media.…
A pair of curved shocks in a collisionless plasma is examined with a two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. The shocks are created by the collision of two electron-ion clouds at a speed that exceeds everywhere the threshold…
We investigate the role of kinetic instabilities driven by a proton anisotropy on the onset of magnetic reconnection by means of 2-D hybrid simulations. The collisionless tearing of a current sheet is studied in the presence of a proton…
In space and astrophysical plasmas, violent events or instabilities inject energy into turbulent motions at large scales. Nonlinear interactions among the turbulent fluctuations drive a cascade of energy to small perpendicular scales at…
I review recent analytical and numerical advances in the study of non-equilibrium quark-gluon plasma physics. I concentrate on studies of the dynamics of plasmas which are locally anisotropic in momentum space. In contrast to locally…
A mechanism for fast magnetic reconnection in collisionless plasma is studied for understanding sawtooth collapse in tokamak discharges by using a two-fluid model for cold ions and electrons. Explosive growth of the tearing mode enabled by…
We propose that pressure anisotropy causes weakly collisional turbulent plasmas to self-organize so as to resist changes in magnetic-field strength. We term this effect "magneto-immutability" by analogy with incompressibility (resistance to…