Related papers: Scaling of Magnetic Dissipation and Particle Accel…
We present the results of particle-in-cell numerical pair plasma simulations of relativistic 2D magnetostatic equilibria known as the 'ABC' fields. In particular, we focus on the lowest-order unstable configuration consisting of two minima…
We present the results of three-dimensional kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of isotropic periodic relativistically magnetized pair-plasma equilibria known as the ABC fields. We performed several simulations for initial…
We investigate particle acceleration in an MHD-scale system of multiple current sheets by performing 2D and 3D MHD simulations combined with a test particle simulation. The system is unstable for the tearing-mode instability, and magnetic…
The acceleration time scale for the process of first-order Fermi acceleration in relativistic shock waves with oblique magnetic field configurations is investigated by the method of Monte Carlo particle simulations. We demonstrate the…
The interplay between kinetic and macroscopic scales during magnetic reconnection is investigated using particle-in-cell simulations of magnetic island coalescence in the strongly-magnetized, relativistic pair plasma regime. For large…
Previous studies [Malara et al ApJ, 533, 523 (2000)] considered small-amplitude Alfven wave (AW) packets in Arnold-Beltrami-Childress (ABC) magnetic field using WKB approximation. In this work linearly polarised Alfven wave dynamics in ABC…
The dissipation of kinetic and magnetic energy in the interstellar medium (ISM) can proceed through viscous, Ohmic or ambipolar diffusion (AD). It occurs at very small scales compared to the scales at which energy is presumed to be…
Scale invariance is a hallmark of many natural systems, including solar flares, where energy release spans a vast range of scales. Recent computational advances, at the level of both algorithmics and hardware, have enabled high-resolution…
We investigate magnetic reconnection in systems simultaneously containing asymmetric (anti-parallel) magnetic fields, asymmetric plasma densities and temperatures, and arbitrary in-plane bulk flow of plasma in the upstream regions. Such…
Particle in cell (PIC) simulations of collisionless magnetic reconnection are presented that demonstrate that the electron dissipation region develops a distinct two-scale structure along the outflow direction. The length of the electron…
We solve for the motion of charged particles in a helical time-periodic ABC (Arnold-Beltrami-Childress) magnetic field. The magnetic field lines of a stationary ABC field with coefficients $A=B=C=1$ are chaotic, and we show that the motion…
Dissipative processes cause collisionless plasmas in many systems to develop nonthermal particle distributions with broad power-law tails. The prevalence of power-law energy distributions in space/astrophysical observations and kinetic…
Mathematics demonstrates that an ideally evolving magnetic field has an exponentially increasing sensitivity to non-ideal effects for all but truly exceptional evolutions. On a time scale that depends only logarithmically on the magnitude…
Bearing in mind the application to the outer crust of the neutron stars (NSs), we investigate the magnetic field decay by means of the fully relativistic Particle-In-Cell simulations. Numerical computations are carried out in 2-dimensions,…
Magnetic energy around compact objects often dominates over plasma rest mass, and its dissipation can power the object luminosity. We describe a dissipation mechanism which works faster than magnetic reconnection. The mechanism involves two…
Particle acceleration and pitch-angle anisotropy resulting from magnetic reconnection are investigated in highly magnetized ion-electron plasmas. By means of fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations, we demonstrate that magnetic…
We investigate physical scaling laws for magnetic energy dissipation in solar flares, in the framework of the Sweet-Parker model and the Petschek model. We find that the total dissipated magnetic energy $E_{diss}$ in a flare depends on the…
Electron and proton acceleration in three-dimensional electric and magnetic fields is studied through test particle simulations. The fields are obtained by a three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulation of magnetic reconnection in slab…
In solar flares and other astrophysical systems, a major challenge for solving particle acceleration problem associated with magnetic reconnection is the enormous scale separation between kinetic scales and observed reconnection scale.…
The particle-in-cell approach has proven effective at modeling neutron star and black hole magnetospheres from first principles, but global simulations are plagued with an unrealistically small separation between the scales where…