Related papers: Pitch-Angle Anisotropy Imprinted by Relativistic M…
Particle acceleration and pitch-angle anisotropy resulting from magnetic reconnection are investigated in highly magnetized ion-electron plasmas. By means of fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations, we demonstrate that magnetic…
Nature's most powerful high-energy sources are capable of accelerating particles to high energy and radiate it away on extremely short timescales, even shorter than the light crossing time of the system. It is yet unclear what physical…
In magnetized astrophysical outflows, the dissipation of field energy into particle energy via magnetic reconnection is often invoked to explain the observed non-thermal signatures. By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell…
Understanding how the release of stored magnetic energy contributes to the generation of non-thermal high energy particles during solar flares is an important open problem in solar physics. Magnetic reconnection plays a fundamental role in…
The past decade has seen an outstanding development of nonthermal particle acceleration in magnetic reconnection in magnetically-dominated systems, with clear signatures of power-law energy distributions as a common outcome of…
We report on the first study of the angular distribution of energetic particles and radiation generated in relativistic collisionless electron-positron pair plasma reconnection, using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We…
Magnetic reconnection is thought to be the driver for many explosive phenomena in the universe. The energy release and particle acceleration during reconnection have been proposed as a mechanism for producing high-energy emissions and…
Particles are accelerated to very high, non-thermal energies during explosive energy-release phenomena in space, solar, and astrophysical plasma environments. While it has been established that magnetic reconnection plays an important role…
Power-law distributions are a near universal feature of energetic particle spectra in the heliosphere. Anomalous Cosmic Rays (ACRs), super-Alfv\'enic ions in the solar wind and the hardest energetic electron spectra in flares all have…
Magnetic reconnection is a primary driver of particle acceleration processes in space and astrophysical plasmas. Understanding how particles are accelerated and the resulting particle energy spectra is among the central topics in…
The effect of pitch-angle anisotropy of fast electrons on generation of nonthermal radio emission is studied. Incoherent gyrosynchrotron radiation is shown to depend strongly on the anisotropy. In particular, the spectral index of…
Magnetic reconnection in relativistic collisionless plasmas can accelerate particles and power high-energy emission in various astrophysical systems. Whereas most previous studies focused on relativistic reconnection in pair plasmas, less…
The conversion of magnetic energy into other forms during solar flares is one of the outstanding open problems in solar physics. It is generally accepted that magnetic reconnection plays a crucial role in these conversion processes. To…
Synchrotron radiation detected from relativistic astrophysical objects such as pulsar-wind nebulae and {jets from active galactic nuclei} depends on the magnetic fields and the distribution functions of energetic electrons in these systems.…
Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations have shown that relativistic collisionless magnetic reconnection drives nonthermal particle acceleration (NTPA), potentially explaining high-energy (X-ray/$\gamma$-ray) synchrotron and/or inverse Compton…
Relativistic magnetic turbulence has been proposed as a process for producing nonthermal particles in high-energy astrophysics. Particle energization may be contributed by both magnetic reconnection and turbulent fluctuations, but their…
The observed power-law spectra of relativistic jets from active galactic nuclei clearly indicate a synchrotron mechanism of radiation by particles that similarly possess a power-law energy spectrum. However, the issue of their angular…
Magnetic reconnection, especially in the relativistic regime, provides an efficient mechanism for accelerating relativistic particles and thus offers an attractive physical explanation for nonthermal high-energy emission from various…
Rapid and luminous flares of non-thermal radiation observed in blazars require an efficient mechanism of energy dissipation and particle acceleration in relativistic active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets. Particle acceleration in relativistic…
We derive basic scaling equations for relativistic magnetic reconnection in the general case of asymmetric inflow conditions and obtain predictions for the outflow Lorentz factor and the reconnection rate. Kinetic Particle-in-Cell…