English
Related papers

Related papers: The microphysics of collisionless shock waves

200 papers

We model strong forward shocks in young supernova remnants with efficient particle acceleration where a nonresonant instability driven by the cosmic ray current amplifies magnetic turbulence in the shock precursor. Particle injection,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-13 Andrey E. Vladimirov , Andrei M. Bykov , Donald C. Ellison

Collisionless shocks can be produced as a result of strong magnetic fields in a plasma flow, and therefore are common in many astrophysical systems. The Weibel instability is one candidate mechanism for the generation of sufficiently strong…

Magnetic fields pervade the entire Universe and affect the formation and evolution of astrophysical systems from cosmological to planetary scales. The generation and dynamical amplification of extragalactic magnetic fields through cosmic…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2016-04-27 F. Rincon , F. Califano , A. A. Schekochihin , F. Valentini

Electrons can be accelerated to ultrarelativistic energies at strong (high-Mach number) collisionless shock waves that form when stellar debris rapidly expands after a supernova. Collisionless shock waves also form in the flow of particles…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-12 A. Masters , L. Stawarz , M. Fujimoto , S. J. Schwartz , N. Sergis , M. F. Thomsen , A. Retinò , H. Hasegawa , G. R. Lewis , A. J. Coates , P. Canu , M. K. Dougherty

The collision of two plasma clouds at a speed that exceeds the ion acoustic speed can result in the formation of shocks. This phenomenon is observed not only in astrophysical scenarios such as the propagation of supernova remnant (SNR)…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-19 Mark Eric Dieckmann , Gianluca Sarri , Domenico Doria , Hamad Ahmed , Marco Borghesi

Shock waves are supersonic disturbances propagating in a fluid and giving rise to dissipation and drag. Weak shocks, i.e., those of small amplitude, can be well described within the hydrodynamic approximation. On the other hand, strong…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2010-12-24 Sergei Khlebnikov , Martin Kruczenski , Georgios Michalogiorgakis

The interaction between the supersonic jet and background can influence the process of star formation, and this interaction also results in a change of the jet's velocity, direction and density through shock waves. However, due to the…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2024-01-31 Z. Lei , Z. H. Zhao , Y. Xie , W. Q. Yuan , 1 L. X. Li , H. C. Gu , X. Y. Li , B. Q. Zhu , J. Q. Zhu , S. P. Zhu , X. T. He , B. Qiao

There is an observational correlation between astrophysical shocks and non-thermal particle distributions extending to high energies. As a first step toward investigating the possible feedback of these particles on the shock at the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2012-01-31 Thomas Stroman , Martin Pohl , Jacek Niemiec , Antoine Bret

This paper investigates the nature of the MHD turbulence excited by the streaming of accelerated cosmic rays in a shock wave precursor. The two recognised regimes (non-resonant and resonant) of the streaming instability are taken into…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 Guy Pelletier , Martin Lemoine , Alexandre Marcowith

The role of slow-mode MHD shocks in magnetic reconnection is one of great importance for energy conversion and transport, but in many astrophysical plasmas the plasma is not fully ionised. In this paper, we investigate, using numerical…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2016-10-27 Andrew Hillier , Shinsuke Takasao , Naoki Nakamura

Shock waves in plasmas can be characterized by the mechanisms behind their formation. When binary collisions are frequent, dissipation is collision-driven and the shock width is a few mean free paths. In contrast, collisionless shocks rely…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2025-08-18 Yossef Nissim Kindi , Asaf Pe'er , Antoine Bret , Luís O. Silva , Kevin M. Schoeffler

Collisionless plasma shock theory, which applies for example to the afterglow of gamma ray bursts, still contains key issues that are poorly understood. In this paper we study charged particle dynamics in a highly relativistic collisionless…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 C. B. Hededal , T. Haugboelle , J. Trier Frederiksen , Å. Nordlund

Powerful stellar winds and supernova explosions with intense energy release in the form of strong shock waves can convert a sizeable part of the kinetic energy release into energetic particles. The starforming regions are argued as a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-12 A. M. Bykov , P. E. Gladilin , S. M. Osipov

A comprehensive review is given of the various processes proposed for accelerating particles by shocks to high energies. These energies are limited by several bounds: the non-relativistic nature of the heliospheric collisionless shocks to…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-06-26 R. A. Treumann , C. H. Jaroschek

We present some recent developments in the theory of particle acceleration at shock fronts in the presence of dynamical reaction of the accelerated particles and self-generation of magnetic field due to streaming instability. The spectra of…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-06-13 Pasquale Blasi , Elena Amato

Energetic astrophysical phenomena, such as $\gamma$-ray bursts, supernova explosions, and magnetar flares occur in collisionless plasmas and involve various plasma kinetic and magnetohydrodynamic instabilities. In this paper, we explore the…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2025-10-27 Michael C. Sitarz

The evolution of the properties of short-scale electrostatic waves across collisionless shocks remains an open question. We use a method based on the interferometry of the electric field measured aboard the magnetospheric multiscale…

Space Physics · Physics 2025-02-26 Ahmad Lalti , Yuri V. Khotyaintsev , Daniel B. Graham , Andris Vaivads

Shocks are a ubiquitous consequence of cosmic structure formation, and they play an essential role in heating galaxy cluster media. Virtually all of the gas in clusters has been processed by one or more shocks of at least moderate strength.…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 T. W. Jones , Francesco Miniati , Dongsu Ryu , Hyesung Kang , Eric J. Hallman

A concise and critical review of Balmer-dominated shocks (BDSs) is presented, summarizing the state of theory and observations, including models with/without shock precursors and their synergy with atomic physics. Observations of BDSs in…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-14 Kevin Heng

We show that the Weibel-mediated collisionless shocks are driven at non-relativistic propagation speed (0.1c < V < 0.45c) in unmagnetized electron-ion plasmas by performing two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. It is shown that the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2014-11-18 Tsunehiko N. Kato , Hideaki Takabe