Related papers: A corrugated termination shock in pulsar wind nebu…
According to magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models, the rotational energy of a rapidly spinning neutron star is carried away by a relativistic wind and deposited at a large distance, in the nebula, downstream of the wind termination shock. The…
We present a scenario that could explain non-thermal particle acceleration in relativistic quasi-perpendicular electron-positron shocks, such as the termination shock of pulsar wind nebulae. The shock produces a strong electromagnetic…
Fast magnetosonic waves in a magnetically-dominated plasma are investigated. In the pulsar wind, these waves may transport a significant fraction of the energy flux. It is shown that the nonlinear steepening and subsequent formation of…
We provide a consistent theory of turbulence in the presence of shear and rotation. Starting from a quasi-linear equation for the fluctuating fields, we derive turbulence amplitude and turbulent transport coefficients, taking into account…
The Crab Nebula emits bright non-thermal radiation from radio to the most energetic photons. The underlying physical model of a relativistic wind from the pulsar terminating in a hydrodynamic standing shock remains unchanged since the early…
We investigate a class of pulsar wind nebulae that show synchrotron emission from a thick toroidal structure. The best studied such object is the small radio and X-ray nebula around the Vela pulsar, which can be interpreted as the result of…
The conversion of the Crab pulsar wind from one dominated by Poynting flux close to the star to one dominated by particle-born energy at the termination shock is considered. The idea put forward by Coroniti (1990) and criticised by…
The accelerative expansion of the Crab nebula's outer envelope is a mystery in dynamics as a conventional expanding blast wave decelerates when bumping into the surrounding interstellar medium. Here we show that the strong relativistic…
By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the process of driven magnetic reconnection at the termination shock of relativistic striped flows. In pulsar winds and in magnetar-powered relativistic…
We have investigated the relaxation of a hydrostatic hot plasma column containing toroidal magnetic field by the Current-Driven (CD) kink instability as a model of pulsar wind nebulae. In our simulations the CD kink instability is excited…
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,…
Pulsar winds are the ideal environment for the study of non-linear electromagnetic waves. It is generally thought that a pulsar launches a striped wind, a magnetohydrodynamic entropy wave, where plasma sheets carried along with the flow…
The Crab Nebula is one of the most efficient accelerators in the Galaxy and the only galactic source showing direct evidence of PeV particles. In spite of this, the physical process behind such effective acceleration is still a deep…
In this contribution we review the recent progress in the modeling of Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWN). We start with a brief overview of the relevant physical processes in the magnetosphere, the wind-zone and the inflated nebula bubble. Radiative…
The efficiency of particle acceleration at shock waves in relativistic, magnetized astrophysical outflows is a debated topic with far-reaching implications. Here, for the first time, we study the impact of turbulence in the pre-shock…
Flows in which energy is transported predominantly as Poynting flux are thought to occur in pulsars, gamma-ray bursts and relativistic jets from compact objects. The fluctuating component of the magnetic field in such a flow can in…
Diverging supersonic flows are accelerating, as in the case of a de Laval nozzle, and the same concept has been applied for acceleration of magnetohydrodynamic flows in the universe. Here, we study the dynamics of "non-diverging"…
The generation of turbulence at magnetized shocks and its subsequent interaction with the latter is a key question of plasma- and high-energy astrophysics. This paper presents two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a fast shock…
The oblique geometry of pulsar wind termination shock ensures that the Doppler beaming has a strong impact on the shock emission. We illustrate this using recent relativistic MHD simulations of the Crab Nebula and also show that the…
I review the constraints placed on relativistic pulsar winds by comparing optical and X-ray images of the inner Crab Nebula on the one hand with two-dimensional MHD simulations on the other. The various proposals in the literature for…