Related papers: Electron Pre-Acceleration at Nonrelativistic High-…

Recent X-ray observations of merger shocks in galaxy clusters have shown that the post-shock plasma is two-temperature, with the protons being hotter than the electrons. In this work, the second of a series, we investigate by means of…

Particle acceleration and heating at mildly relativistic magnetized shocks in electron-ion plasma are investigated with unprecedentedly high-resolution two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that include ion-scale shock rippling.…

Two charge- and current neutral plasma beams are modelled with a one-dimensional PIC simulation. The beams are uniform and unbounded. The relative speed between both beams is 0.4c. One beam is composed of electrons and protons and one out…

Particle acceleration in relativistic shocks of electron-positron plasmas with proton admixture is investigated through two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The upstream plasma, with a bulk Lorentz factor of $10$ and a…

The outflows from gamma ray bursts, active galactic nuclei and relativistic jets in general interact with the surrounding media through collisionless shocks. With three dimensional relativistic particle-in-cell simulations we investigate…

We explore the physics of shock evolution and particle acceleration in non-relativistic collisionless shocks using multidimensional hybrid simulations. We analyze a wide range of physical parameters relevant to the acceleration of cosmic…

Fermi acceleration can develop efficiently at relativistic collisionless shock waves provided the upstream (unshocked) plasma is weakly magnetized. At low magnetization, the large size of the shock precursor indeed provides enough time for…

Collisionless shocks are known to induce turbulence via upstream ion reflection within the precursor region. This study elucidates the properties of electrostatic and electromagnetic instabilities, exploring their role over the…

The localized deposition of the energy of a laser pulse, as it ablates a solid target, introduces high thermal pressure gradients in the plasma. The thermal expansion of this laser-heated plasma into the ambient medium (ionized residual…

Collisionless shocks tend to send charged particles into the upstream, driving electric currents through the plasma. Using kinetic particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate how the background thermal plasma neutralizes such currents in…

Low Mach number, high beta fast mode shocks can occur in the magnetic reconnection outflows of solar flares. These shocks, which occur above flare loop tops, may provide the electron energization responsible for some of the observed hard…

In addition to electrons and protons, nonrelativistic quasiparallel shocks are expected to possess the ability to accelerate heavy ions. The shocks in supernova remnants are generally supposed to be accelerators of the Galactic cosmic rays,…

We study the suprathermal electron acceleration mechanism in a perpendicular magnetosonic shock wave in a high Mach number regime by using a particle-in-cell simulation. We find that shock surfing/surftron acceleration producing the…

Energetic positrons have been observed in the interstellar medium, and high-energy positrons with relativistic energies up to approximately 1 TeV have been detected in Galactic cosmic rays. We conducted a study on the acceleration of…

Using our new 3-D relativistic electromagnetic particle (REMP) code parallelized with MPI, we investigated long-term particle acceleration associated with a relativistic electron-positron jet propagating in an unmagnetized ambient…

Reconnection shocks in a magnetically dominated plasma must be compressive. Non-thermal ion acceleration can occur across built-in slow shocks, and across outflow fast shocks when the outflow is supermagnetosonic and the field is line-tied.…

We discuss 3D simulations of relativistic collisionless shocks in electron-positron pair plasmas using the particle-in-cell (PIC) method. The shock structure is mainly controlled by the shock's magnetization ("sigma" parameter). We…

Supernova remnants (SNRs) are believed to produce the majority of galactic cosmic rays (CRs). SNRs harbor non-relativistic collisionless shocks responsible for acceleration of CRs via diffusive shock acceleration (DSA), in which particles…

Shock drift acceleration plays an important role in generating high-energy electrons at quasi-perpendicular shocks, but its efficiency in low beta plasmas is questionable. In this article, we perform a two-dimensional particle-in-cell…

This research was motivated by the recent observations indicating very strong magnetic fields at some supernova remnant shocks, which suggests in-situ generation of magnetic turbulence. The dissertation presents a numerical model of…