Related papers: Reconnection in pulsar winds
Switchbacks (rotations of the magnetic field) are observed on the Parker Solar Probe. Their evolution, content, and plasma effects are studied in this paper. The solar wind does not receive a net acceleration from switchbacks that it…
The Crab Nebula was formed after the collapse of a massive star about a thousand years ago, leaving behind a pulsar that inflates a bubble of ultra-relativistic electron-positron pairs permeated with magnetic field. The observation of brief…
I propose that the moving `wisps' near the center of the Crab Nebula result from nonlinear Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in the equatorial plane of the shocked pulsar wind. Recent observations suggest that the wisps trace out circular…
Astrophysical fluids are generically turbulent and this must be taken into account for most transport processes. We discuss how the preexisting turbulence modifies magnetic reconnection and how magnetic reconnection affects the MHD…
Reconnection and turbulence are two of the most commonly observed dynamical processes in plasmas, but their relationship is still not fully understood. Using 2.5D kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of both strong turbulence and…
Fast reconnection in magnetically dominated plasmas is widely invoked in models of dissipation in pulsar winds, gamma-ray flares in the Crab nebula, and to explain the radio nanoshots of pulsars. When current sheets evolve reaching a…
We have investigated the relaxation of a hydrostatic hot plasma column containing toroidal magnetic field by the Current-Driven (CD) kink instability as a model of pulsar wind nebulae. In our simulations the CD kink instability is excited…
A subset (~ 10%) of massive stars present strong, globally ordered (mostly dipolar) magnetic fields. The trapping and channeling of their stellar winds in closed magnetic loops leads to magnetically confined wind shocks (MCWS), with…
In this contribution we review the recent progress in the modeling of Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWN). We start with a brief overview of the relevant physical processes in the magnetosphere, the wind-zone and the inflated nebula bubble. Radiative…
Recent results from LHAASO and Tibet AS$\gamma$ suggest that the Crab Nebula's gamma-ray spectrum extends to the PeV energy range, however the production mechanisms of this highest energy emission remain unclear. It has been postulated that…
The gamma-ray space telescopes AGILE and Fermi detected short and bright synchrotron gamma-ray flares at photon energies above 100 MeV in the Crab Nebula. This discovery suggests that electron-positron pairs in the nebula are accelerated to…
Young pulsars produce relativistic winds which interact with matter ejected during the supernova explosion and the surrounding interstellar gas. Particles are accelerated to very high energies somewhere in the pulsar winds or at the shocks…
Accreting pulsars power relativistic jets, and display a complex spin phenomenology. These behaviours may be closely related to the large-scale configuration of the star's magnetic field, shaped by its interaction with the surrounding…
We have detected an x-ray nebula around the binary millisecond pulsar B1957+20. A narrow tail, corresponding to the shocked pulsar wind, is seen interior to the known H-alpha bow shock and proves the long-held assumption that the rotational…
We discuss the spin evolution of pulsars in the case where a superfluid component of the star is coupled to the observable crust on long, spindown timescales. The momentum transfer from the superfluid interior results in an apparent decay…
Using the exact solution of the axisymmetric pulsar magnetosphere derived in a previous publication and the conservation laws of the associated MHD flow, we show that the Lorentz factor of the outflowing plasma increases linearly with…
The solar wind is connected to the Sun's atmosphere by flux tubes that are rooted in an ever-changing pattern of positive and negative magnetic polarities on the surface. Observations indicate that the magnetic field is filamentary and…
The aim of this work is to study the energy transport by means of MHD waves propagating in quiet Sun magnetic topology from layers below the surface to the corona. Upward propagating waves find obstacles, such as the equipartition layer…
As shown by broad-band observations, pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) are characterized by a broken power-law spectrum of synchrotron emission. Based on the modern magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence theories, we investigate the re-acceleration…
Interchange reconnection is thought to play an important role in determining the dynamics and material composition of the slow solar wind that originates from near coronal hole boundaries. To explore the implications of this process we…