Related papers: Perpendicular relativistic shocks in magnetized pa…
We present numerical results from plasma particle simulations of collisionless shocks and ultra-relativistic counter-streaming plasmas. We demonstrate how the field-particle interactions lead to particle acceleration behind the shock-front.…
The expansion of a dense plasma into a dilute plasma across an initially uniform perpendicular magnetic field is followed with a one-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation over MHD time scales. The dense plasma expands in the form of…
This paper presents a new method of Monte-Carlo simulations of test particle Fermi acceleration at relativistic shocks. The particle trajectories in tangled magnetic fields are integrated out exactly from entry to exit through the shock,…
Charged plasma particles form an anisotropic counter-streaming distribution at the front of a shock. In the near- and ultra-relativistic regimes, Weibel (or two-stream) instability produces near-equipartition, chaotic, small-scale magnetic…
The physics of instabilities in the precursor of relativistic collisionless shocks is of broad importance in high energy astrophysics, because these instabilities build up the shock, control the particle acceleration process and generate…
A two-dimensional (2D) shock-rest-frame model for particle simulations is developed. Then full kinetic dynamics of a perpendicular collisionless shock is examined by means of a 2D full particle simulation. We found that in the 2D simulation…
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…
As a shock front interacts with turbulence, it develops corrugation which induces outgoing wave modes in the downstream plasma. For a fast shock wave, the incoming wave modes can either be fast magnetosonic waves originating from…
The prompt emissions of gamma-ray bursts are seeded by radiating ultrarelativistic electrons. Internal shocks propagating through a jet launched by a stellar implosion, are expected to amplify the magnetic field & accelerate electrons. We…
Observations of gamma-ray burst afterglows suggest that the correlation length of magnetic field fluctuations downstream of relativistic non-magnetized collisionless shocks grows with distance from the shock to scales much larger than the…
We have investigated particle acceleration and emission from shocks and shear flows associated with an unmagnetized relativistic jet plasma propagating into an unmagnetized ambient plasma. Strong electro-magnetic fields are generated in the…
Shock acceleration is a ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., Buneman, Weibel and other two-stream instabilities) created in collisionless shocks are responsible for particle…
Shock acceleration is an ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., the Buneman instability, two-streaming instability, and the Weibel instability) created in the shocks are…
(Abridged): We study the collision of magnetized irregularities (shells) in relativistic outflows in order to explain the origin of the generic phenomenology observed in the non-thermal emission of both blazars and gamma-ray bursts. We…
In this second paper of a series, we discuss the dynamics of a plasma entering the precursor of an unmagnetized, relativistic collisionless pair shock. We discuss how this background plasma is decelerated and heated through its interaction…
We investigate the formation of plasma cavities in unmagnetized relativistic pair shocks and demonstrate that these cavities emerge naturally as a nonlinear consequence of asymmetric Weibel instability. We provide an intuitive physical…
Using the field-particle correlation technique, we examine the particle energization in a 1D-2V continuum Vlasov--Maxwell simulation of a perpendicular magnetized collisionless shock. The combination of the field-particle correlation…
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…
We study the long term evolution of magnetic fields generated by a collisionless relativistic $e^+e^-$ shock which is initially unmagnetized. Our 2D particle-in-cell numerical simulations show that downstream of such a Weibel-mediated…
We discuss a mechanism for intense electromagnetic wave emission at an astrophysical relativistic shock in a magnetized collisionless plasma. At the magnetized shock, the particle reflection by a compressed magnetic field of the shock…