Related papers: Relativistic shock acceleration and some consequen…
We present an analytical approach to calculate the hydrodynamics of the interaction between a relativistic ejecta and a surrounding medium, whose evolution serves as a model for Gamma-Ray Burst afterglows. We investigate the effect of the…
A sufficiently powerful astrophysical source with power law luminosity in time will give rise to a self-similar relativistic blast wave with a reverse shock traveling into the ejecta and a forward shock moving into the surrounding medium.…
A direct numerical simulation of a strong relativistic collisionless shock propagating into an unmagnetized medium has been performed in two spatial dimensions. It is found that: (i) collisionless shock exists, (ii) particle acceleration is…
We review the present status of the cosmic ray acceleration theory in mildly relativistic shock waves. Due to the involved substantial particle anisotropies analytical methods can tackle only simple situations involving weakly turbulent…
The interaction between a thin foil target and a circularly polarized laser light injected along an external magnetic field is investigated numerically by particle-in-cell simulations. A standing wave appears at the front surface of the…
The radiation from afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) is generated in collisionless plasma shocks. The two main ingredients behind the radiation are high-energy, non-thermal electrons and a strong magnetic field. I argue that in order to…
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…
Highly energetic, relativistic electrons are commonly present in many astrophysical systems, from solar flares to the intra-cluster medium, as indicated by observed electromagnetic radiation. However, open questions remain about the…
We review the arguments supporting the existence of a maximal acceleration for a massive particle and show that different values of this upper limit can be predicted in different physical situations.
Using large-scale fully-kinetic two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the effects of shock rippling on electron acceleration at low-Mach-number shocks propagating in high-$\beta$ plasmas, in application to merger…
The maximum energy to which cosmic rays can be accelerated at weakly-magnetised ultra-relativistic shocks is investigated. We demonstrate that for such shocks, in which the scattering of energetic particles is mediated exclusively by ion…
Particle-in-cell (PIC) numerical simulations are currently among the most advanced tools to investigate particle acceleration at relativistic shocks. Still, they come with limitations imposed by finite computing power, whose impact is not…
Energy spectra of particles accelerated by the first-order Fermi mechanism are investigated at ultrarelativistic shock waves, outside the range of Lorentz factors considered previously. For particle transport near the shock a numerical…
Optical and radio afterglows arising from the shocks by relativistic conical ejecta running into pre-burst massive stellar winds are revisited. Under the homogeneous thin-shell approximation and a realistic treatment for the lateral…
For an expanding spherical relativistic shock, we derive relations between the parameters of downstream emitting zone and the quantities measured by a distant observer. These relations are formulated in terms of dimensionless effective…
The standard model of Gamma-Ray Bursts afterglows is based on synchrotron radiation from a blast wave produced when the relativistic ejecta encounters the surrounding medium. We reanalyze the refreshed shock scenario, in which slower…
Shock wave theory was first studied for gas dynamics, for which shocks appear as compression waves. A shock wave is characterized as a sharp transition, even discontinuity in the flow. In fact, shocks appear in many different physical…
Explosions of massive stars are believed to be the source of a significant fraction of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). If this is indeed the case, then the explosion blast wave propagates into a complex density structure, composed of a stellar…
This review focuses on the physics of Gamma Ray Bursts probed through their radio afterglow emission. Even though radio band is the least explored of the afterglow spectrum, it has played an important role in the progress of GRB physics,…
This paper presents numerical simulations of test particle Fermi acceleration at relativistic shocks of Lorentz factor Gamma_sh = 2-60, using a realistic downstream magnetic structure obtained from the shock jump conditions. The upstream…