Related papers: Return Currents in Collisionless Shocks
A large class of Laboratory, Space, and Astrophysical plasmas is nearly collisionless. When a localized energy or particle sink, for example, in the form of a radiative cooling spot or a black hole, is introduced into such a plasma, it can…
In the Universe matter outside of stars and compact objects is mostly composed of collisionless plasma. The interaction of a supersonic plasma flow with an obstacle results in collisionless shocks that are often associated with intense…
The physics of collisionless shocks is a very broad topic which has been studied for more than five decades. However, there are a number of important issues which remain unresolved. The energy repartition amongst particle populations in…
The downstream region of a collisionless quasi-parallel shock is structured containing bulk flows with high kinetic energy density from a previously unidentified source. We present Cluster multi-spacecraft measurements of this type of…
A nonresonant cosmic-ray-current-driven instability may operate in the shock precursors of young supernova remnants and be responsible for magnetic-field amplification, plasma heating and turbulence. Earlier simulations demonstrated…
The effects of radiation on the structure of shocks in a fully-ionized plasma are investigated by solving the steady-state fluid equations for ions, electrons, and radiation. The electrons and ions are assumed to have the same bulk velocity…
We present the first laboratory observations of time-resolved electron and ion velocity distributions in forming, magnetized collisionless shocks. Thomson scattering of a probe laser beam was used to observe the interaction of a…
In this paper, we study shock structures of collisionless shocks in partially ionized plasmas by means of two-dimensional hybrid simulations, where the shock is a perpendicular shock with shock velocity Vsh ~ 40 Va ~ 1333 km/s and the…
We present a study of perpendicular subcritical shocks in a collisional laboratory plasma. Shocks are produced by placing obstacles into the super-magnetosonic outflow from an inverse wire array z-pinch. We demonstrate the existence of…
We review recent progress on collisionless relativistic shocks. Kinetic instability theory is briefed including its predictions and limitations. The main focus is on numerical experiments in (i) pair and (ii) electron-nucleon plasmas. The…
Gamma ray bursts are among the most energetic events in the known universe. A highly relativistic fireball is ejected. In most cases the burst itself is followed by an afterglow, emitted under deceleration as the fireball plunges through…
In situ observations of energetic particles at the Earth's bow-shock that are attainable by the satellite missions have long created the opinion that electrons are most efficiently accelerated in a quasi-perpendicular shock geometry.…
Fast collisionless shocks in cosmic plasmas convert their kinetic energy flow into the hot downstream thermal plasma with a substantial fraction of energy going into a broad spectrum of superthermal charged particles and magnetic…
We study with a two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation the stability of a discontinuity or piston, which separates an electron-positron cloud from a cooler electron-proton plasma. Such a piston might be present in the relativistic jets…
Recent X-ray observations of merger shocks in galaxy clusters have shown that the post-shock plasma is two-temperature, with the protons being hotter than the electrons. In this work, the second of a series, we investigate by means of…
Seventy crossings of the Earths bow shock by the THEMIS satellites have been used to study thermal electron heating in collisionless, quasi-perpendicular shocks. It was found that the temperature increase of thermal electrons differed from…
Collisionless shock acceleration, which transfers localized particle energies to non-thermal energetic particles via electromagnetic potential, is ubiquitous in space plasma. We investigate dynamics of collisionless electrostatic shocks…
The preacceleration of electrons through reflection and shock drift acceleration (SDA) is essential for the diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) of nonthermal electrons in collisionless shocks. Previous studies suggested that, in weak…
In systems accreting well below the Eddington rate, the plasma in the innermost regions of the disk is collisionless and two-temperature, with the ions hotter than the electrons. Yet, whether a collisionless faster-than-Coulomb energy…
Electron accelerations at high Mach number collision-less shocks are investigated by means of two-dimensional electromagnetic Particle-in-Cell simulations with various Alfven Mach numbers, ion-to-electron mass ratios, and the upstream…