Related papers: Balancing Turbulent Heating with Radiative Cooling…
Numerical simulations and experimental results have shown that current sheets formation in space plasmas can be associated with enhanced vorticity. Also, in simulations the generation of such structures is associated with strong plasma…
Magnetic-field generation by a relativistic ion beam propagating through an electron-ion plasma along a homogeneous magnetic field is investigated with 2.5D high-resolution particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The studies test predictions of…
We study the interplay between turbulent heating, mixing, and radiative cooling in an idealized model of cool cluster cores. Active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets are expected to drive turbulence and heat cluster cores. Cooling of the…
In a collisionless plasma, the energy distribution function of plasma particles can be strongly affected by turbulence. In particular, it can develop a non-thermal power-law tail at high energies. We argue that turbulence with initially…
How thermal equilibrium is determined in a weakly collisional plasma is a fundamental question in plasma physics. This letter shows that the turbulence driven by the magnetic curvature and density gradient tends to equilibrate the…
We construct a numerical model of emission from minijets, localized flows driven by magnetic reconnection inside Poynting-flux-dominated jets proposed to explain the ultrafast variability of blazars. The geometrical structure of the model…
The relationship between magnetic reconnection and plasma turbulence is investigated using multipoint in-situ measurements from the Cluster spacecraft within a high-speed reconnection jet in the terrestrial magnetotail. We show explicitly…
We report on the results of a simulation based study of colliding magnetized plasma flows. Our set-up mimics pulsed power laboratory astrophysical experiments but, with an appropriate frame change, are relevant to astrophysical jets with…
Particle dynamics are investigated in plasma turbulence, using self-consistent kinetic simulations, in two dimensions. In steady state, the trajectories of single protons and proton-pairs are studied, at different values of plasma "beta"…
We argue that stochastic and resonant ion heating, often viewed as distinct processes in low-$\beta$ collisionless plasmas, are the far limits of a continuum controlled by nonlinear broadening of turbulent fluctuations, and thus by the…
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…
We present results from particle-in-cell simulations of driven turbulence in magnetized, collisionless, and relativistic pair plasma. We find that fluctuations are consistent with the classical $k_\perp^{-5/3}$ magnetic energy spectrum at…
Weakly collisional space plasmas are rarely in local thermal equilibrium and often exhibit non-Maxwellian electron and ion velocity distributions that lead to the growth of microinstabilities, that is, enhanced electric and magnetic fields…
We investigate properties of turbulence and turbulent transport of non-inertial particles described in terms of turbulent thermal diffusion in strongly inhomogeneous and anisotropic convection forced by two similar turbulence generators…
The polarization of X-ray synchrotron emission in blazars directly probes the magnetic field geometry and particle acceleration processes in relativistic jets. We use particle-in-cell simulations of magnetic reconnection and magnetized…
An understanding of how turbulent energy is partitioned between ions and electrons in weakly collisional plasmas is crucial for modelling many astrophysical systems. Using theory and simulations of a four-dimensional reduced model of…
The jet composition and energy dissipation mechanism of Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and Blazars are fundamental questions which remain not fully understood. One plausible model is to interpret the $\gamma$-ray emission of GRBs and optical…
The dynamics of weakly magnetized collisionless plasmas in the presence of an imposed temperature gradient along an ambient magnetic field is explored with particle-in-cell simulations and modeling. Two thermal reservoirs at different…
Time-variable polarization is an extremely valuable observational tool to probe the dynamical physical conditions of blazar jets. Since 2008, we have been monitoring the flux and linear polarization of a sample of gamma-ray bright blazars…
The prompt $\gamma$-rays of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may originate from the photosphere of a relativistic jet. However, only a few GRBs have been observed with evident blackbody-like emission, for example, GRB~090902B. It has been…