Related papers: Radiative Properties of Plasmoids and Plasmoid Mer…
It is commonly believed that blazar jets are relativistic magnetized plasma outflows from supermassive black holes. One key question is how the jets dissipate magnetic energy to accelerate particles and drive powerful multi-wavelength…
Relativistic magnetic reconnection events can widely exist in magnetized plasmas in astrophysical systems. During this process, oppositely directed magnetic field lines reconnect and release magnetic energy, efficiently accelerating…
We show that magnetic reconnection in a magnetically-dominated fast-cooling plasma can naturally produce bright flares accompanied by rotations in the synchrotron polarization vector. With particle-in-cell simulations of reconnection, we…
Plasmoid growth is considered to enhance the rate of magnetic reconnection and is frequently used to explain fast mag netic reconnection in highly conductive (collisionless) plasmas. In strongly magnetized plasmas, the long wavelength…
The multi-wavelength spectral and temporal variability observed in blazars set tight constraints on current theoretical emission models. Here, we investigate the relativistic magnetic reconnection process as a source of blazar emission in…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental physical process converting magnetic energy into not only plasma energy but also particle energy in various astrophysical phenomena. In this letter, we show a unique dataset of a solar flare where…
Magnetic reconnection is invoked as one of the primary mechanisms to produce energetic particles. We employ large-scale three-dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell simulations of reconnection in magnetically-dominated ($\sigma=10$) pair plasmas…
Blazars are relativistic magnetized plasma outflows from supermassive black holes that point very close to our line of sight. Their emission is nonthermal dominated and highly variable across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.…
Magnetic reconnection is a process that converts magnetic energy into plasma energy by changing the magnetic field line topology. The outstanding question is why the reconnection rate is $\mathcal{O}(0.01 - 0.1)$ in many astrophysical…
Based on our recent MHD simulations, first, a concept of the successive merging of plasmoids and fragmentation in the current sheet in the standard flare model is presented. Then, using a 2.5-D electromagnetic particle-in-cell model with…
Magnetic reconnection drives a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, including geomagnetic storms, solar flares, and activity in blazars. However, direct measurement of key reconnection observables remains challenging due to the remote and…
Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous and fundamental process in plasmas by which magnetic fields change their topology and release magnetic energy. Despite decades of research, the physics governing the reconnection process in many…
Blazar emission models based on magnetic reconnection succeed in reproducing many observed spectral and temporal features, including the short-duration luminous flaring events. Plasmoids, a self-consistent by-product of the tearing…
We present the results of 2D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of relativistic magnetic reconnection (RMR) in electron-positron plasma, including the dynamical influence of the synchrotron radiation process, and integrating the observable…
Magnetic reconnection plays a crucial role in the energy release process for different kinds of solar eruptions and activities. The rapid solar eruption requires a fast reconnection model. Plasmoid instability in the reconnecting current…
The magnetosphere of a rotating pulsar naturally develops a current sheet beyond the light cylinder (LC). Magnetic reconnection in this current sheet inevitably dissipates a nontrivial fraction of the pulsar spin-down power within a few LC…
We investigate the distribution of particle acceleration sites, independently of the actual acceleration mechanism, during plasmoid-dominated, relativistic collisionless magnetic reconnection by analyzing the results of a particle-in-cell…
Fast $\gamma$-ray variability in blazars remains a central puzzle in high-energy astrophysics, challenging standard shock acceleration models. Blazars, a subclass of active galactic nuclei (AGN) with jets pointed close to our line of sight,…
Plasmoids, quasi-spherical regions of plasma containing magnetic fields and high-energy particles, are a self-consistent by-product of the reconnection process in the relativistic regime. Recent two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC)…
Blobs, or quasi-spherical emission regions containing relativistic particles and magnetic fields, are often assumed ad hoc in emission models of relativistic astrophysical jets, yet their physical origin is still not well understood. Here,…