Related papers: Electron Surfing and Drift Accelerations in a Weib…
A new electron acceleration mechanism is identified that develops when a relativistically intense laser irradiates the wedge of an over-dense plasma. This induces a diffracted electromagnetic wave with a significant longitudinal electric…
We report on the observation of rapid particle acceleration in numerical simulations of relativistic jet-plasma interactions and discuss the underlying mechanisms. The dynamics of a charge-neutral, narrow, electron-positron jet propagating…
We directly compare hybrid kinetic simulations and in situ observations of a high Mach number high-$\beta$ shock in the Solar wind. We launch virtual probes to demonstrate that the model quantitatively reproduces the observations. The…
Observational evidence in space and astrophysical plasmas with long collisional mean free path suggests that more massive charged particles may be preferentially heated. One possible mechanism for this is the turbulent cascade of energy…
Kinetic numerical simulations of the evolution of the Weibel instability during the full nonlinear regime are presented. The formation of strong distortions in the electron distribution function resulting in formation of strong peaks in it…
Electron plasmas confined by an external magnetic field exhibit variations in a two-dimensional plane orthogonal to the confining magnetic field. A nonlinear fluid simulation code to investigate the properties of 2-D electron plasma wave…
Thermal electrons have gyroradii many orders of magnitude smaller than the finite width of a shock, thus need to be pre-accelerated before they can cross it and be accelerated by diffusive shock acceleration. One region where…
We study the acceleration of electrons and positrons at an electromagnetically modified, ultra-relativistic shock in the context of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). We simulate the outflow produced by an obliquely rotating pulsar in proximity of…
Nonthermal radiation observed from astrophysical systems containing relativistic jets and shocks, e.g., gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and microquasars commonly exhibit power-law emission spectra. Recent PIC…
One of the key questions in the study of relativistic jets is how magnetic reconnection occurs and whether it can effectively accelerate electrons in the jet. We performed 3D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of a relativistic…
We present evidence that relativistic shocks propagating in unmagnetized plasmas can self-consistently accelerate particles. We use long-term two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to study the well-developed shock structure in…
Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations have shown that relativistic collisionless shocks mediated by the Weibel instability accelerate about 1% of incoming particles, while the majority are transmitted through the shock and become thermalized.…
We study diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) of electrons in non-relativistic quasi-perpendicular shocks using self-consistent one-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. By exploring the parameter space of sonic and Alfv\'{e}nic…
The formation of collisionless shock fronts is an ubiquitous phenomenon in space plasma environments. In the solar wind shocks might accompany coronal mass ejections, while even more violent events, such as supernovae, produce shock fronts…
Collisionless shocks occur in various fields of physics. In the context of space and astrophysics they have been investigated for many decades. However, a thorough understanding of shock formation and particle acceleration is still missing.…
We simulate, using a particle-in-cell code, the chain of acceleration processes at work during the Compton-based interaction of a dilute electron-ion plasma with an extreme-intensity, incoherent gamma-ray flux with a photon density several…
We investigated electromagnetic precursor wave emission in relativistic shocks by using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We found that the wave amplitude is significantly enhanced by a positive feedback process associated with…
Electrons in shocks are efficiently energized due to the cross-shock potential, which develops because of differential deflection of electrons and ions by the magnetic field in the shock front. The electron energization is necessarily…
We discuss a semi-analytical solution of the transport equation for electrons at a non-relativistic shock in the presence of synchrotron energy losses. We calculate the spectrum of accelerated (test) particles at any point upstream and…
Plasma processes close to SNR shocks result in the amplification of magnetic fields and in the acceleration of electrons, injecting them into the diffusive acceleration mechanism. The acceleration of electrons and the B field amplification…