Related papers: Collisionless ablative plasma shocks
We present analysis of more than one hundred large-amplitude bipolar electrostatic structures in a quasi-perpendicular supercritical Earth's bow shock crossing, measured by the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft. The occurrence of the…
Collisionless shocks are pervasive in astrophysics and they are critical to understand cosmic ray acceleration. Laboratory experiments with intense lasers are now opening the way to explore and characterise the underlying microphysics,…
Observational evidence in space and astrophysical plasmas with long collisional mean free path suggests that more massive charged particles may be preferentially heated. One possible mechanism for this is the turbulent cascade of energy…
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…
When two plasmas collide, their interaction can be mediated by collisionless plasma instabilities or binary collisions between particles of each shell. By comparing the maximum growth rate of the collisionless instabilities with the…
The assimilation of ablated high-Z impurities into the hot surrounding plasma along the magnetic field is investigated by first-principles kinetic simulations. It is found that the assimilated impurity ions, primarily driven by the…
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…
Collisionless, turbulent plasmas surround the Earth, from the magnetosphere to the intergalactic medium, and the fluctuations within them affect nearly every field in the space sciences, from space weather forecasts to theories of galaxy…
Collisionless shock acceleration of carbon ions (C$^{6+}$) is investigated in the ultra-relativistic regime of laser-plasma interaction by accounting for the radiation reaction force and the pair production in particle-in-cell simulations.…
We present a new experimental method to generate quasi-perpendicular supercritical magnetized collisionless shocks. In our experiment, ambient nitrogen (N) plasma is at rest and well-magnetized, and it has uniform mass density. The plasma…
The properties of collisionless shocks, like the density jump, are usually derived from magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), where isotropic pressures are assumed. Yet, in a collisionless plasma, an external magnetic field can sustain a stable…
Some essential features of the ion plasma wave in both kinetic and fluid descriptions are presented. The wave develops at wavelengths shorter than the electron Debye radius. Thermal motion of electrons at this scale is such that they…
Does overall thermal equilibrium exist between ions and electrons in a weakly collisional, magnetised, turbulent plasma---and, if not, how is thermal energy partitioned between ions and electrons? This is a fundamental question in plasma…
Shock heating and particle acceleration processes are some of the most fundamental physical phenomena of plasma physics with countless applications in laboratory physics, space physics, and astrophysics. This study is motivated by previous…
We present numerical results from plasma particle simulations of collisionless shocks and ultra-relativistic counter-streaming plasmas. We demonstrate how the field-particle interactions lead to particle acceleration behind the shock-front.…
Plasma processes close to SNR shocks result in the amplification of magnetic fields and in the acceleration of electrons, injecting them into the diffusive acceleration mechanism. The acceleration of electrons and the B field amplification…
One of the main features of astrophysical shocks is their ability to accelerate particles to extremely high energies. The leading acceleration mechanism, the diffusive shock acceleration is reviewed. It is demonstrated that its efficiency…
Observations of gamma-ray burst afterglows suggest that the correlation length of magnetic field fluctuations downstream of relativistic non-magnetized collisionless shocks grows with distance from the shock to scales much larger than the…
If the electrons in a plasma are suddenly heated, the resulting change in Debye shielding causes the ion kinetic energy to quickly increase. For the first time, this correlation heating, which is much faster than collisional energy…
The formation of collisionless shock fronts is an ubiquitous phenomenon in space plasma environments. In the solar wind shocks might accompany coronal mass ejections, while even more violent events, such as supernovae, produce shock fronts…