Related papers: A mechanism that could stop the acceleration proce…
An ablative plasma shock can emanate from the interface between a cold/dense plasma and a hot/dilute ambient plasma, where the plasma mean-free-path is much longer than the temperature gradient length. The shock is driven by thermal flux…
Shock waves in plasmas can be characterized by the mechanisms behind their formation. When binary collisions are frequent, dissipation is collision-driven and the shock width is a few mean free paths. In contrast, collisionless shocks rely…
The growth rate of long wavelength kinetic instabilities arising due to the interaction of a collimated beam of relativistic particles and a cold unmagnetized plasma are calculated in the ultra relativistic limit. For sufficiently…
We analytically study diffusive particle acceleration in relativistic, collisionless shocks. We find a simple relation between the spectral index s and the anisotropy of the momentum distribution along the shock front. Based on this…
The linear theory of shock acceleration predicts the maximum particle energy to be limited only by the acceleration time and the size of the shock. We study the combined effect of acceleration nonlinearity (shock modification by accelerated…
We report here on a fast current-driven instability at relativistic collisionless shocks, triggered by the perpendicular current carried by the supra-thermal particles as they gyrate around the background magnetic field in the shock…
Recent studies about collisionless shocks in partially ionized plasmas showed that some of neutral particles leak into the shock upstream region from the downstream region. In this paper, we perform a linear analysis and show that acoustic…
The probability that a particle, crossing the shock along a given direction, be reflected backwards along another direction, was shown to be the key element in determining the spectrum of non--thermal particles accelerated via Fermi…
When a beam propagates in an accelerator, it interacts with both the external fields and the self-generated electromagnetic fields. If the latter are strong enough, the interplay between them and a perturbation in the beam distribution…
The limits imposed on diffusive shock acceleration by upstream ion-neutral Alfven wave damping, and by ionisation and Coulomb losses of low energy particles, are calculated. Analytic solutions are given for the steady upstream wave…
Particle acceleration in collisionless plasma systems is a central question in astroplasma and astroparticle physics. The structure of the acceleration regions, electron-ion energy equilibration, preacceleration of particles at shocks to…
Finite-size impurities suspended in incompressible flows distribute inhomogeneously, leading to a drastic enhancement of collisions. A description of the dynamics in the full position-velocity phase space is essential to understand the…
Colliding collisionless shocks appear in a great variety of astrophysical phenomena and are thought to be possible sources of particle acceleration in the Universe. To investigate the detailed dynamics of this phenomenon, we have performed…
In this letter, structural rigidity concepts are used to understand the origin of instabilities in granular aggregates. It is shown that: a) The contact network of a noncohesive granular aggregate becomes exactly isostatic in the limit of…
Collisionless plasma shocks are a common feature of many space and astrophysical systems and are sources of high-energy particles and non-thermal emission, channeling as much as 20\% of the shock's energy into non-thermal particles. The…
Nonrelativistic electrostatic unmagnetized shocks are frequently observed in laboratory plasmas and they are likely to exist in astrophysical plasmas. Their maximum speed, expressed in units of the ion acoustic speed far upstream of the…
We explore analytically the structure of relativistic shock and solitary wave solutions in collisionless plasmas. In the wave frame of reference, a cold plasma is flowing from one end and impacting on a low velocity plasma. First we show…
We model the diffusive shock acceleration of particles in a system of two colliding shock waves and present a method to solve the time-dependent problem analytically in the test-particle approximation and high energy limit. In particular,…
The thin-shell instability has been named as one process, which can generate entangled structures in astrophysical plasma on collisional (fluid) scales. It is driven by a spatially varying imbalance between the ram pressure of the inflowing…
We provide a both qualitative and quantitative comparison among different approaches aimed to solve the problem of non-linear diffusive acceleration of particles at shocks. In particular, we show that state-of-the-art models (numerical,…