Related papers: Relativistic magnetic explosions
When a laser field is incident on an overdense plasma it is unable to penetrate inside it. Nevertheless, a part of its energy gets transferred to the electrons through a variety of mechanisms (e.g. vacuum and $\vec{J}\times \vec{B}) heating…
Motivated by recent simulations of sunspot formation, we extend the theory of the pressure difference between magnetized and non-magnetized gas by Dicke to include rotating turbulence. While the (vertical) background field provides a…
Magnetic reconnection is a process that changes magnetic field topology in highly conducting fluids. Traditionally, magnetic reconnection was associated mostly with solar flares. In reality, the process must be ubiquitous as astrophysical…
A density structure within the magnetic cloud of an interplanetary coronal mass ejection impacted Earth and caused significant perturbations in plasma boundaries. We describe the effects of this structure on the magnetosheath plasma…
Astrophysical explosions result from the release of magnetic, gravitational, or thermonuclear energy on dynamical timescales, typically the sound-crossing time for the system. These explosions include solar and stellar flares, eruptive…
There are now several types of relativistic flows in astrophysical settings. The foremost examples are jets and disks orbiting spinning black holes, pulsar winds and gamma ray bursts. As discussed at this meeting, these flows exhibit…
Recently, an increasing interest in astrophysical as well as laboratory plasmas has been manifested in reference to the existence of relativistic flows, related in turn to the production of intense electric fields in magnetized systems.…
Giant $\gamma$-ray flares comprise the most extreme radiation events observed from magnetars. Developing on (sub)millisecond timescales and generating vast amounts of energy within a fraction of a second, the initial phase of these…
We demonstrate that particles are regularly accelerated while experiencing curvature drift in flows driven by magnetic tension. Some examples of such flows include spontaneous turbulent reconnection and decaying magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)…
The number of pulsars with detected emission at X-ray and gamma-ray energies has been steadily growing, showing that beams of high-energy particles are commonly accelerated in pulsar magnetospheres, even though the location and number of…
Low-mass galaxies radio observations show in many cases surprisingly high levels of magnetic field. The mass and kinematics of such objects do not favour the development of effective large-scale dynamo action. We attempted to check if the…
The activity of magnetars is believed to be powered by colossal magnetic energy reservoirs. We sketch an evolutionary picture in which internal field evolution in magnetars generates a twisted corona, form which energy may be released…
Magnetar magnetospheres are believed to be strongly twisted, due to shearing of the stellar crust by internal magnetic stresses. We present time-dependent axisymmetric simulations showing in detail the evolution of relativistic force-free…
We derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which a large class of relativistic generalizations of Braginskii's magnetohydrodynamics with shear, bulk, and heat diffusion effects is causal and strongly hyperbolic in the fully…
Relativistic transparency enables volumetric laser interaction with overdense plasmas and direct laser acceleration of electrons to relativistic velocities. The dense electron current generates a magnetic filament with field strength of the…
Relativistic blast waves can be described by a mechanical model. In this model, the "blast" -- the compressed gas between the forward and reverse shocks -- is viewed as one hot body. Equations governing its dynamics are derived from…
Magnetic diffusion plays a vital role in star formation. We trace its influence from interstellar cloud scales down to star-disk scales. On both scales, we find that magnetic diffusion can be significantly enhanced by the buildup of strong…
In this paper we propose a new mechanism describing the initial spike of giant flares in the framework of the starquake model. We investigate the evolution of a plasma on a closed magnetic flux tube in the magnetosphere of a magnetar in the…
Eruptive flares are sudden releases of magnetic energy that involve many phenomena, several of which can be explained by the standard 2D flare model and its realizations in three-dimensions. We analyze a three-dimensional…
We develop a model of particle acceleration in explosive reconnection events in relativistic magnetically-dominated plasmas and apply it to explain gamma-ray flares from the Crab Nebula. The model relies on development of current-driven…