Related papers: Physical problems (microphysics) in relativistic p…
Shear flows are ubiquitously present in space and astrophysical plasmas. This paper highlights the central idea of the non-thermal acceleration of charged particles in shearing flows and reviews some of the recent developments. Topics…
Nonthermal radiation observed from astrophysical systems containing relativistic jets and shocks e.g. gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and microquasars commonly exhibit power-law emission spectra. Recent PIC simulations…
Generation of relativistic electron (RE) beams during ultraintense laser pulse interaction with plasma targets is studied by collisional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Strong magnetic field with transverse scale length of several local…
Particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulations are a productive and valued tool for the study of nonlinear plasma phenomena, yet there are basic questions about the simulation methods themselves that remain unanswered. Here we study one such…
Shock acceleration is a ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., Buneman, Weibel and other two-stream instabilities) created in collisionless shocks are responsible for particle…
The Weibel instability driven by two symmetric counter-streaming relativistic electron plasmas, also referred to as current-filamentation instability, is studied in a constant and uniform external magnetic field aligned with the plasma…
In this review we confront the current theoretical understanding of particle acceleration at relativistic outflows with recent observational results on various source classes thought to involve such outflows, e.g. gamma-ray bursts, active…
Cosmic-ray acceleration processes in astrophysical plasmas are often investigated with fully-kinetic or hybrid kinetic numerical simulations, which enable us to describe a detailed microphysics of particle energization mechanisms. Tracing…
Representing the electrodynamics of relativistically drifting particle ensembles in discrete, co-propagating Galilean coordinates enables the derivation of a Particle-in-Cell algorithm that is intrinsically free of the Numerical Cherenkov…
Spatio-temporal evolution of the relativistic Buneman instability has been investigated in one dimension using an in-house developed particle-in-cell simulation code. Starting from the excitation of the instability, its evolution has been…
We review recent developments in particle acceleration by Poynting flux using plasma kinetic simulations, and discuss their potential applications to gamma-ray burst phenomenology
At the core of some of the most important problems in plasma physics -- from controlled nuclear fusion to the acceleration of cosmic rays -- is the challenge to describe nonlinear, multi-scale plasma dynamics. The development of reduced…
Advanced spectral and statistical data analysis techniques have greatly contributed to shaping our understanding of microphysical processes in plasmas. We review some of the main techniques that allow for characterising fluctuation…
The dynamics of the oscillator system is investigated. The conditions under which this dynamics becomes unstable are determined. In particular, it is shown that plasma in constant magnetic field becomes unstable if its density exceeds a…
Direct studies of intense laser-solid interactions is still of great challenges, because of the many coupled physical mechanisms, such as direct laser heating, ionization dynamics, collision among charged particles, and electrostatic or…
Parker instability arises from the presence of magnetic fields in a plasma in a gravitational field such as the interstellar medium (ISM), wherein the magnetic buoyant pressure expels the gas and causes the gas to move along the field…
Plasma wakefield acceleration is a groundbreaking technique for accelerating particles, capable of sustaining gigavolt-per-meter accelerating fields. Understanding the physical mechanisms governing the recovery of plasma accelerating…
This article is an invitation. It is, first, an invitation to consider as a subject worthy of attention the wide range of situations where small discrete elements, either bubbles, droplets or solid particles, are embedded in turbulent…
We report on the observation of rapid particle acceleration in numerical simulations of relativistic jet-plasma interactions and discuss the underlying mechanisms. The dynamics of a charge-neutral, narrow, electron-positron jet propagating…
The Particle-In-Cell (PIC) method has been developed by Oscar Buneman, Charles Birdsall, Roger W. Hockney, and John Dawson in the 1950s and, with the advances of computing power, has been further developed for several fields such as…