English
Related papers

Related papers: Microphysics of Relativistic Collisionless Electro…

200 papers

Shocks are promising sites of particle acceleration in extragalactic jets. In electron-ion shocks, electrons can be heated up to large Lorentz factors, making them an attractive scenario to explain the high minimum electron Lorentz factors…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-10-29 A. Arbet-Engels , A. Bohdan , F. Rieger , D. Paneque , F. Jenko

lasma instabilities excited in collisionless shocks are responsible for particle acceleration. We have investigated the particle acceleration and shock structure associated with an unmagnetized relativistic electron-positron jet propagating…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-03 K. -I. Nishikawa , E. J. Choi , K. Min , P. Hardee , Y. Mizuno , B. Zhang , J. Niemiec , M. Medvedev , A. Nordlund , J. Fredriksen , M. Pohl , H. Sol , D. H. Hartmann , G. J. Fishman

Magnetized collisionless shocks drive particle acceleration broadly in space and astrophysics. We perform the first large-scale particle-in-cell simulations with realistic laboratory parameters (density, temperature, and velocity) to…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2024-05-24 P. Liu , D. Wu , D. W. Yuan , G. Zhao , Z. M. Sheng , X. T. He , J. Zhang

Shock acceleration is an ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g.,Buneman, Weibel and other two-stream instabilities) created in collisionless shocks are responsible for particle…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 K. -I. Nishikawa , P. Hardee , G. Richardson , R. Preece , H. Sol , G. J. Fishman

We report the results of 1D particle-in-cell simulations of ultrarelativistic shock waves in proton-electron-positron plasmas. We consider magnetized shock waves, in which the upstream medium carries a large scale magnetic field, directed…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Elena Amato , Jonathan Arons

We model relativistically colliding plasma by PIC simulations in one and two spatial dimensions, taking an ion-to-electron mass ratio of 400. Energy dissipation by a wave precursor of mixed polarity and different densities of the colliding…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 M. E. Dieckmann , P. K. Shukla , L. O. C. Drury

Nonrelativistic electrostatic unmagnetized shocks are frequently observed in laboratory plasmas and they are likely to exist in astrophysical plasmas. Their maximum speed, expressed in units of the ion acoustic speed far upstream of the…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2015-06-15 ME Dieckmann , H Ahmed , G Sarri , D Doria , I Kourakis , L Romagnani , M Pohl , M Borghesi

We calculate the structure of a relativistic shock wave in which the internal energy of the shocked fluid is radiated away on a time scale much shorter than the characteristic shock propagation time. The shock is assumed to move through a…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-06 Jonathan Granot , Arieh Konigl

Weakly magnetized shock waves are paramount to a large diversity of environments, including supernova remnants, blazars, and binary-neutron-star mergers. Understanding the distribution of energy between electrons and ions within these…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-10-22 Arno Vanthieghem , Vasileios Tsiolis , Frederico Fiuza , Kazuhiro Sekiguchi , Anatoly Spitkovsky , Yasushi Todo

We investigate the acceleration of charged particles (both electrons and protons) at collisionless shocks predicted to exist in the vicinity of solar flares. The existence of standing termination shocks has been examined by flare models and…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-04 Fan Guo , Joe Giacalone

Electrons in shocks are efficiently energized due to the cross-shock potential, which develops because of differential deflection of electrons and ions by the magnetic field in the shock front. The electron energization is necessarily…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 M. Gedalin , M. A. Balikhin , D. Eichler

We investigate shock structure and particle acceleration in relativistic magnetized collisionless pair shocks by means of 2.5D and 3D particle-in-cell simulations. We explore a range of inclination angles between the pre-shock magnetic…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2011-02-11 Lorenzo Sironi , Anatoly Spitkovsky

A two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation is performed to investigate weakly magnetized perpendicular shocks with a magnetization parameter of 6 x 10^-5, which is equivalent to a high Alfv\'en Mach number M_A of ~130. It is shown that…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2010-09-03 Tsunehiko N. Kato , Hideaki Takabe

The prompt emissions of gamma-ray bursts are seeded by radiating ultrarelativistic electrons. Internal shocks propagating through a jet launched by a stellar implosion, are expected to amplify the magnetic field & accelerate electrons. We…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2010-12-01 Gareth C. Murphy , Mark E. Dieckmann , Antoine Bret , Luke O'C. Drury

We analyse the full shock formation process in electron-ion plasmas in theory and simulations. It is accepted that electromagnetic shocks in initially unmagnetised relativistic plasmas are triggered by the filamentation instability.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-24 Anne Stockem Novo , Antoine Bret , Ricardo A. Fonseca , Luis O. Silva

Astrophysical shocks are often collisionless shocks. An open question about collisionless shocks is whether electrons and ions each establish their own post-shock temperature, or whether they quickly equilibrate in the shock region. Here we…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-24 Jacco Vink , Sjors Broersen , Andrei Bykov , Stefano Gabici

Collisionless electron-ion shocks are fundamental to astrophysical plasmas, yet their behavior in strong magnetic fields remains poorly understood. Using Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations with the SHARP-1D3V code, we investigate the role…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2025-11-17 Mohamad Shalaby , Antoine Bret , Federico Fraschetti

We present a survey of 1D kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of quasi-parallel non-relativistic shocks to identify the environments favorable for electron acceleration. We explore an unprecedented range of shock speeds $v_{\rm sh}\approx…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-08-30 Siddhartha Gupta , Damiano Caprioli , Anatoly Spitkovsky

Relativistic collisionless shocks are associated with efficient particle acceleration when propagating into weakly magnetized homogeneous media; as the magnetization increases, particle acceleration becomes suppressed. We demonstrate that…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-04-26 Camilia Demidem , Joonas Nättilä , Alexandra Veledina

We use large hybrid simulations to study ion acceleration and generation of magnetic turbulence due to the streaming of particles that are self-consistently accelerated at non-relativistic shocks. When acceleration is efficient, we find…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-18 Damiano Caprioli , Anatoly Spitkovsky