Related papers: Thermal-to-nonthermal element abundances in differ…
In energetic nonthermal sources such as gamma-ray bursts, AGN or galactic jet sources, etc., one expects both relativistic and transrelativistic shocks acompanied by violent motions of moderately relativistic plasma. We present general…
Accreting black holes in galactic X-ray sources are surrounded by hot plasma. The innermost part of these systems is likely a corona with different temperatures for ions and electrons. In the so-called low-hard state, hot electrons…
We study the change in cosmic-ray pressure, the change in cosmic-ray density, and the level of cosmic-ray induced heating via Alfven-wave damping when cosmic rays move from a hot ionized plasma to a cool cloud embedded in that plasma. The…
Recent measurements of cosmic-ray spectra of several individual nuclear species by the CREAM, TRACER, and ATIC experiments indicate a change in the spectral index of the power laws at TeV energies. Possible explanations among others include…
Our Galaxy is the largest nuclear interaction experiment which we know, because of the interaction between cosmic ray particles and the interstellar material. Cosmic rays are particles, which have been accelerated in the Galaxy or in…
Understanding the heating of electrons to quasi-thermal energies at collisionless shocks has broad implications for plasma astrophysics. It directly impacts the interpretation of X-ray spectra from shocks, is important for understanding how…
We review the possible mechanisms for production of non-thermal electrons which are responsible for non-thermal radiation in clusters of galaxies. Our primary focus is on non-thermal Bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton scattering, that…
If highly efficient, cosmic ray production can have a significant effect on the X-ray emission from SNRs as well as their dynamical evolution. Using hydrodynamical simulations including diffusive shock acceleration, we produce spectra for…
When the pressure of particles accelerated at shock waves is no longer negligible compared to the kinetic pressure of the gas, the linear theory of diffusive shock acceleration breaks down. This is expected in particular when the shock…
Context: Multiwavelength observations of supernova remnants can be explained within the framework of the diffusive shock acceleration theory, which allows effective conversion of the explosion energy into cosmic rays. Although the models of…
We investigate heating and acceleration of protons from a thermal gas with a generic diffusion and acceleration model, and subject to Coulomb scattering and energy loss, as was carried out in Petrosian & East (2008) for electrons. As…
On both observational and theoretical grounds, the disk of our Galaxy should be accreting cool gas with temperature ~<10^5 K via the halo at a rate ~1 M_sun/yr. At least some of this accretion is mediated by high velocity clouds (HVCs),…
We discuss the origin of thermal and non-thermal phenomena in galaxy clusters. Specifically, we present some expectations for the non-thermal emission (from radio to gamma ray wavelenghts) expected in a model in which secondary electrons…
Galactic cosmic rays (CRs) are a fundamental non-thermal component of the interstellar medium (ISM). Understanding the transport of super-high-energy particles is essential for interpreting observations of Galactic PeVatrons. Classical…
We present a model for the creation of non-thermal particles via diffusive shock acceleration in a colliding-wind binary. Our model accounts for the oblique nature of the global shocks bounding the wind-wind collision region and the finite…
The cosmic ray energy spectra of protons and helium nuclei, which are the most abundant components of cosmic radiation, exhibit a remarkable hardening at energies above one hundred GeV/nucleon. Recent data from AMS-02 confirms this feature…
Due to its ubiquitous presence, turbulence is often invoked to explain the origin of nonthermal particles in astrophysical sources of high-energy emission. With particle-in-cell simulations, we study decaying turbulence in…
We calculate the distribution of electrons in clusters of galaxies, resulting from thermalization processes in the presence of stochastic acceleration due to plasma waves. We show that the electron distribution can deviate from a…
Supernova explosions into predecessor stellar winds can lead to particle acceleration, which we suggest can explain most of the observed cosmic rays of the nuclei of Helium and heavier elements, from GeV in particle energies up to near $3…
Diffusive shock acceleration by the shockwaves in supernova remnants (SNRs) is widely accepted as the dominant source for Galactic cosmic rays. However, it is unknown what determines the maximum energy of accelerated particles. The…