Related papers: Radiative turbulent flares in magnetically-dominat…
We report on experiments in which magnetically driven radiatively cooled plasma jets were produced by a 1 MA, 250 ns current pulse on the MAGPIE pulsed power facility. The jets were driven by the pressure of a toroidal magnetic field in a…
Turbulence profoundly affects particle transport and plasma heating in many astrophysical plasma environments, from galaxy clusters to the solar corona and solar wind to Earth's magnetosphere. Both fluid and kinetic simulations of plasma…
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…
Magnetic reconnection can power bright, rapid flares originating from the inner magnetosphere of accreting black holes. We conduct extremely high resolution ($5376\times2304\times2304$ cells) general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics…
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…
Pulsar wind nebulae are efficient particle accelerators, and yet the processes at work remain elusive. Self-generated, microturbulence is too weak in relativistic magnetized shocks to accelerate particles over a wide energy range,…
Alfv\'enic turbulence is an effective mechanism for particle acceleration in strongly magnetized, relativistic plasma. In this study, we investigate a scenario where turbulent plasma is influenced by a strong guide magnetic field, resulting…
We present a detailed analysis of a 3D MHD simulation of a subset of the magnetic flux in an active region. The simulation models the generation of nanoflares and response of the plasma to imposed photospheric motions. Our study focuses on…
Momentum deposition by radiation pressure from young, massive stars may help to destroy molecular clouds and unbind stellar clusters by driving large-scale outflows. We extend our previous numerical radiation hydrodynamic study of…
The scaling of turbulent heat flux with respect to electrostatic potential is examined in the framework of a reduced ($4$D) kinetic system describing electrostatic turbulence in magnetized plasmas excited by the ion temperature gradient…
Fast, counter-streaming plasma outflows drive magnetic field amplification, plasma heating, and particle acceleration in numerous astrophysical environments, from supernova remnant shocks to active galactic nuclei jets. Understanding how,…
Radiation transport plays important roles in stellar atmospheres, but the effects of turbulence are being obscured by other effects such as stratification. Using radiative hydrodynamic simulations of forced turbulence, we determine the…
We perform global particle-in-cell simulations of pulsar magnetospheres including pair production, ion extraction from the surface, frame dragging corrections, and high energy photon emission and propagation. In the case of oblique…
Turbulence in a conducting plasma can amplify seed magnetic fields in what is known as the turbulent, or small-scale, dynamo. The associated growth rate and emergent magnetic-field geometry depend sensitively on the material properties of…
Magnetic reconnection is thought to be the driver for many explosive phenomena in the universe. The energy release and particle acceleration during reconnection have been proposed as a mechanism for producing high-energy emissions and…
We study particle acceleration in strongly turbulent pair plasmas using novel 3D Particle-in-Cell simulations, featuring particle injection from an external heat bath and diffusive escape. We demonstrate the formation of steady-state,…
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…
The diffusion of astrophysical magnetic fields in conducting fluids in the presence of turbulence depends on whether magnetic fields can change their topology via reconnection in highly conducting media. Recent progress in understanding…
Synchrotron radiation detected from relativistic astrophysical objects such as pulsar-wind nebulae and {jets from active galactic nuclei} depends on the magnetic fields and the distribution functions of energetic electrons in these systems.…
Energy dissipation is highly intermittent in turbulent plasmas, being localized in coherent structures such as current sheets. The statistical analysis of spatial dissipative structures is an effective approach to studying turbulence. In…