Related papers: Current driven kink instabilities in relativistic …
Force-free current sheets are local plasma structures with field-aligned electric currents and approximately uniform plasma pressures. Such structures, widely found throughout the heliosphere, are sites for plasma instabilities and magnetic…
We present two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell simulations of a magnetized, collisionless, relativistic pair plasma subjected to combined velocity and magnetic-field shear, a scenario typical at intermittent structures in plasma…
Plasma turbulence is the dominant transport mechanism for heat and particles in magnetized plasmas in linear devices and tokamaks, so the study of turbulence is important in limiting and controlling this transport. Linear devices provide an…
Evidence that the magnetic fields of extragalactic jets have a significant fraction of their energy in a random component is briefly summarized, and a detailed model of evolving, jet polarization structures is constructed, based on this…
An overview of some recent progress on magnetohydrodynamic stability and current sheet formation in a line-tied system is given. Key results on the linear stability of the ideal internal kink mode and resistive tearing mode are summarized.…
We solve the linearised Vlasov-Fokker-Planck (VFP) equation to show that heat flow or an electrical current in a magnetized collisional plasma is unstable to the growth of a circularly polarised transverse perturbation to a zeroth order…
We present the first three-dimensional hybrid simulations of the evolution of ion-scale current sheets, with an investigation of the role of temperature anisotropy and associated kinetic instabilities on the growth of the tearing…
When the ion mean free path much exceeds the Larmor radius in a plasma, the viscous stress tensor is altered dramatically, and depends only upon quantities measured along the field lines. This regime corresponds to typical interstellar…
Astrophysical jets are widely believed to be self-collimated by the hoop-stress due to the azimuthal component of their magnetic field. However this implies that the magnetic field is largely dominated by its azimuthal component in the…
We study the long term evolution of magnetic fields generated by an initially unmagnetized collisionless relativistic $e^+e^-$ shock. Our 2D particle-in-cell numerical simulations show that downstream of such a Weibel-mediated shock,…
We study the tearing instability of a current sheet in a relativistic pair plasma with a power law distribution function. We first estimate the growth rate analytically and then confirm the analytical results by solving numerically the…
Apparent evolution of relativistic flows as traced by radio emission results from a combination of several factors related to propagation of relativistic blobs or shocks, velocity, density and pressure stratification of the underlying flow,…
Non-collisional current sheets that form during the nonlinear development of magnetic reconnection are characterized by a small thickness, of the order of the electron skin depth. They can become unstable to the formation of plasmoids,…
Recently, magnetic reconnection, where a relativistically hot plasma is confined by a strong magnetic field, has received great attention in relation to astrophysical objects (e.g., pulsar magnetosphere and magnetar). However, reconnection…
The dissipation mechanism by which the magnetic field reconnects in the presence of an external (guide) magnetic field in the direction of the main current is not well understood. In thin electron current sheets (ECS) (thickness ~ an…
The process of current filamentation in permanently externally driven, initially globally ideal plasmas is investigated by means of two-dimensional Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)-simulations. This situation is typical for astrophysical systems…
Energetic nonthermal particles (cosmic rays, CRs) are accelerated in supernova remnants, relativistic jets and other astrophysical objects. The CR energy density is typically comparable with that of the thermal components and magnetic…
The evolution of laboratory produced magnetic jets is followed numerically through three-dimensional, non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations. The experiments are designed to study the interaction of a purely toroidal field with an…
Kinetic-scale current sheets observed in the solar wind are frequently approximately force-free despite the fact that their plasma $\beta$ is of the order of one. In-situ measurements have recently shown that plasma density and temperature…
It is shown that magnetic islands generated by pressure-gradient-driven turbulence are common across a wide range of conditions. The interaction among turbulence, magnetic island and other large scale structures (the zonal flow and the…