Related papers: Electron-Ion Temperature Equilibration at Collisio…

Collisionless shocks are loosely defined as shocks where the transition between pre-and post-shock states happens on a length scale much shorter than the collisional mean free path. In the absence of collision to enforce thermal equilibrium…

Astrophysical shocks are often collisionless shocks. An open question about collisionless shocks is whether electrons and ions each establish their own post-shock temperature, or whether they quickly equilibrate in the shock region. Here we…

We study the electron-proton temperature equilibration behind several shocks of the RCW 86 supernova remnant. To measure the proton temperature, we use published and new optical spectra, all from different locations on the remnant. For each…

Astrophysical shocks at all scales, from those in the heliosphere up to the cosmological shock waves, are typically "collisionless", because the thickness of their jump region is much shorter than the collisional mean free path. Across…

The analysis of Balmer-dominated optical spectra from non-radiative (adiabatic) SNRs has shown that the ratio of the electron to proton temperature temperature at the blast wave is close to unity at v_s <= 400 km/s, but declines sharply…

We present analysis and modeling of X-ray spectra from the blast wave shock of DEM L71. We have used both Chandra ACIS-S data and optical Fabry-Perot spectra of the blast wave to measure the electron and proton temperatures, respectively.…

Supernova remnants (SNRs), the products of stellar explosions, are powerful astrophysical laboratories, which allow us to study the physics of collisionless shocks, thanks to their bright electromagnetic emission. Blast wave shocks…

Collisionless shock waves in supernova remnants and the solar wind heat electrons less effectively than they heat ions, as is predicted by kinetic simulations. However, the values of T$_e$/T$_p$ inferred from the H alpha profiles of…

High Mach number collisionless shocks are found in planetary systems and supernova remnants (SNRs). Electrons are heated at these shocks to the temperature well above the Rankine-Hugoniot prediction. However processes responsible for…

The last ten years a number of observational advances have substantially increased our knowledge of shock phenomena in supernova remnants. This progress has mainly been made possible by the recent improvements in X-ray and Gamma-ray…

Balmer-dominated shocks in supernova remnants (SNRs) produce strong hydrogen lines with a two-component profile composed of a narrow contribution from cold upstream hydrogen atoms, and a broad contribution from hydrogen atoms that have…

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…

Weakly magnetized shock waves are paramount to a large diversity of environments, including supernova remnants, blazars, and binary-neutron-star mergers. Understanding the distribution of energy between electrons and ions within these…

X-ray observations of shock-heated plasmas, such as those found in supernova remnants, often exhibit features of temperature and ionization non-equilibrium. For accurate interpretation of these observations, proper calculations of the…

Although collisionless shocks are ubiquitous in astrophysics, certain key aspects of them are not well understood. In particular, the process known as collisionless electron heating, whereby electrons are rapidly energized at the shock…

We study the 0509-67.5 supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud with the VLT/FORS2 spectrograph. We detect a broad component in the H-alpha emission with a FWHM of 2680 \pm 70 km/s and 3900 \pm 800 km/s for the southwest (SW) and…

Within a test-particle description of the acceleration process in parallel nonrelativistic shocks, we present an analytic treatment of the electron injection. We estimate the velocity distribution of the injected electrons as the product of…

Observations of synchrotron radiation across a wide range of wavelengths provide clear evidence that electrons are accelerated to relativistic energies in supernova remnants (SNRs). However, a viable mechanism for the pre-acceleration of…

Observations of SN1006 have shown that ions and electrons in the plasma behind fast supernova remnant shock waves are far from equilibrium, with the electron temperature much lower than the proton temperature and ion temperatures…

Measuring shock velocities is crucial for understanding the energy transfer processes at the shock fronts of supernova remnants (SNRs), including acceleration of cosmic rays. Here we present shock velocity measurements on the SNR N132D,…