Related papers: Test particles in relativistic resistive magnetohy…
The heating, acceleration, and pitch-angle scattering of charged particles by MHD turbulence are important in a wide range of astrophysical environments, including the solar wind, accreting black holes, and galaxy clusters. We simulate the…
Using large-scale fully-kinetic two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the effects of shock rippling on electron acceleration at low-Mach-number shocks propagating in high-$\beta$ plasmas, in application to merger…
The test particle approach is a widely used method for studying the dynamics of charged particles in complex electromagnetic fields and has been successful in explaining particle energization in turbulent plasmas. However, this approach is…
Simulations of relativistic plasmas traditionally focus on the dynamics of two-species mixtures of charged particles under the influence of external magnetic fields and those generated by particle currents. However, the extreme conditions…
We use the Los Alamos VPIC code to investigate particle acceleration in relativistic, unmagnetized, collisionless electron-ion plasmas. We run our simulations both with a realistic proton-to-electron mass ratio m_p/m_e = 1836, as well as…
Numerical simulations of weakly magnetized and strongly magnetized relativistic jets embedded in a weakly magnetized and strongly magnetized stationary or weakly relativistic (v = c/2) sheath have been performed. A magnetic field parallel…
The relativistic wave equations of a charged particle propagating in a classical monochromatic electromagnetic plane wave, in a medium of index of refraction n_m < 1, have been studied. In the Dirac case the found exact solutions…
Observations are providing increasingly detailed quantitative information about the accretion flows that power such high energy systems as X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei. Analytic models of such systems must rely on assumptions…
The centers of our galaxy and the nearby Messier 87 are known to contain supermassive black holes, which support accretion flows that radiate across the electromagnetic spectrum. Although the composition of the accreting gas is unknown, it…
Radiation emitted by nonthermal particles accelerated during relativistic magnetic reconnection is critical for understanding the nonthermal emission in a variety of astrophysical systems, including blazar jets, black hole coronae, pulsars,…
Using particle-in-cell (PIC) numerical simulations with electron-positron pair plasma, we study how the efficiencies of magnetic dissipation and particle acceleration scale with the initial coherence length $\lambda_0$ in relation to the…
Simulating black hole (BH) accretion and feedback from the horizon to galactic scales is extremely challenging, as it involves a vast range of scales. Recently, our multizone method has successfully achieved global dynamical steady-states…
In this paper we analyze the effect of dynamical three-dimensional MHD turbulence on test particle acceleration, and compare how this evolving system affects particle energization by current sheets interaction, against frozen-in-time…
Accretion of gas and interaction of matter and radiation are at the heart of many questions pertaining to black hole (BH) growth and coevolution of massive BHs and their host galaxies. To answer them it is critical to quantify how the…
In magnetized astrophysical outflows, the dissipation of field energy into particle energy via magnetic reconnection is often invoked to explain the observed non-thermal signatures. By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell…
The present work investigates the acceleration of test particles in balanced and imbalanced Alfv\'{e}nic turbulence, relevant to the solar-wind problem. These turbulent states, obtained numerically by prescribing the injection rates for the…
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…
The expansion of a magnetized high-pressure plasma into a low-pressure ambient medium is examined with particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The magnetic field points perpendicularly to the plasma's expansion direction and binary collisions…
Dispersive Alfven waves (DAWs) offer, an alternative to magnetic reconnection, opportunity to accelerate solar flare particles. We study the effect of DAW polarisation, L-, R-, circular and elliptical, in different regimes inertial and…
Magnetized turbulence and magnetic reconnection are often invoked to explain the nonthermal emission observed from a wide variety of astrophysical sources. By means of fully-kinetic 2D and 3D PIC simulations, we investigate the interplay…