Related papers: Simultaneous Proton and Electron Energization duri…
Dissipative processes cause collisionless plasmas in many systems to develop nonthermal particle distributions with broad power-law tails. The prevalence of power-law energy distributions in space/astrophysical observations and kinetic…
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…
Fermi acceleration is believed as a crucial process for the acceleration of energetic electrons within flux ropes (FRs) during magnetic reconnection. However, in finite-length FRs with a large core field, the finite contracting and the…
Particle acceleration consequences from fluctuating electric fields superposed on an X-type magnetic field in collisionless solar plasma are studied. Such a system is chosen to mimic generic features of dynamic reconnection, or the…
We have modeled the simultaneous first-order Fermi shock acceleration of protons, electrons, and helium nuclei by relativistic shocks. By parameterizing the particle diffusion, our steady-state Monte Carlo simulation allows us to follow…
We study the acceleration of electrons and positrons at an electromagnetically modified, ultra-relativistic shock in the context of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). We simulate the outflow produced by an obliquely rotating pulsar in proximity of…
Energetic electrons are a common feature of interplanetary shocks and planetary bow shocks, and they are invoked as a key component of models of nonthermal radio emission, such as solar radio bursts. A simulation study is carried out of…
Fully kinetic simulations are applied to the study of 2D anti-parallel reconnection, elucidating the dynamics by which the electron fluid maintains force balance within both the electron diffusion region (EDR) and the ion diffusion region…
While a growing body of research indicates that relativistic magnetic reconnection is a prodigious source of particle acceleration in high-energy astrophysical systems, the dominant acceleration mechanism remains controversial. Using a…
Magnetic reconnection is a ubiquitous astrophysical process that rapidly converts magnetic energy into some combination of plasma flow energy, thermal energy, and non-thermal energetic particles, including energetic electrons. Various…
The solar wind undergoes significant heating as it propagates away from the Sun; the exact mechanisms responsible for this heating remain unclear. Using data from the first perihelion of the Parker Solar Probe mission, we examine the…
Magnetic reconnection is commonly perceived to drive flow and particle acceleration in flares of solar, stellar, and astrophysical disk coronae but the relative roles of different acceleration mecha- nisms in a given reconnection…
We investigate the physics of particle acceleration at non-relativistic shocks exploiting two different and complementary approaches, namely a semi-analytic modeling of cosmic-ray modified shocks and large hybrid (kinetic protons/fluid…
Magnetic flux ropes are commonly observed throughout the heliosphere, and recent studies suggest that interacting flux ropes are associated with some energetic particle events. In this work, we carry out 2D particle-in-cell (PIC)…
Plasma turbulence is thought to be associated with various physical processes involved in solar flares, including magnetic reconnection, particle acceleration and transport. Using Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager ({\it RHESSI})…
Gyrokinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection are presented to investigate plasma heating for strongly magnetized, weakly collisional plasmas. For a low plasma beta case, parallel and perpendicular phase mixing strongly enhance energy…
The important characteristic of turbulent reconnection is that it combines large scale magnetic disturbances $(\delta B/B \sim 1)$ with randomly distributed Unstable Current Sheets (UCSs). Many well known non linear MHD structures (strong…
Magnetic reconnection is a leading mechanism for magnetic energy conversion and high-energy non-thermal particle production in a variety of high-energy astrophysical objects, including ones with relativistic ion-electron plasmas (e.g.,…
We propose a new model for explaining the observations of more than mass proportional heating of heavy ions in the polar solar corona. We point out that a large number of small scale intermittent shock waves can be present in the solar…
Context. Recent observations have shown that magnetic flux cancellation occurs at the photosphere more frequently than previously thought. Aims. In order to understand the energy release by reconnection driven by flux cancellation, we…