Related papers: Electron Acceleration and Efficiency in Nonthermal…
Collisionless plasma shock theory, which applies for example to the afterglow of gamma ray bursts, still contains key issues that are poorly understood. In this paper we study charged particle dynamics in a highly relativistic collisionless…
Recent observations of excess radiation at extreme ultraviolet and hard X-ray energies straddling the well known thermal soft X-ray emission have provided new tools and puzzles for investigation of the acceleration of nonthermal particles…
Numerical modelling is performed for extreme relativistic parallel shocks with upstream Lorentz factor $\Gamma=50$. Assuming the scattering is either large angle or over pitch angles $\sim \Gamma^{-1}$, spectral flattening and shock…
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…
The understanding of the particle spectra resulting from acceleration in relativistic shocks as they occur in extragalactic sources, is essential for the interpretation of the cosmic ray spectrum above the ankle ($E_p>3\cdot 10^{18}$ eV).…
We use 1+1/2 dimensional particle-in-cell plasma simulations to study the interaction of a relativistic, strongly magnetized wind with an ambient medium. Such an interaction is a plausible mechanism which leads to generation of cosmological…
We demonstrate that electrons can be efficiently accelerated to high energy in spatially non-uniform, intense laser fields. Laser non-uniformities occur when a perfect plane wave reflects off a randomly perturbed surface. By solving for…
Particle acceleration at magnetized purely perpendicular relativistic shocks in electron-ion plasmas are studied by means of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Magnetized shocks with the upstream bulk Lorentz factor $\gamma_1 \gg…
A high energy power law is a common feature in the spectra of many astrophysical objects. We show that the photons in a relativistic plasma with a variable Lorentz factor go through repeated scattering with electrons to gain energy. The…
We calculate the energy spectra of cosmic ray (CR) protons and electrons at a plane shock with quasi-parallel magnetic fields, using time-dependent, diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) simulations, including energy losses via synchrotron…
We investigate heating and acceleration of protons from a thermal gas with a generic diffusion and acceleration model, and subject to Coulomb scattering and energy loss, as was carried out in Petrosian & East (2008) for electrons. As…
Gamma-ray bursts are often the brightest objects in the sky during their short life. Particle acceleration in trans-relativistic shocks, internal to the main blastwave, may explain the early intensity peaks, and particle acceleration in the…
Extending previous studies of nonthermal electron transport in solar flares which include the effects of collisional energy diffusion and thermalization of fast electrons, we present an analytic method to infer more accurate estimates of…
The phase-transition induced collapse of a neutron star to a more compact configuration (typically a ``strange'' star) and the subsequent core bounce is often invoked as a model for gamma-ray bursts. We present the results of numerical…
Turbulence is often invoked to explain the origin of nonthermal particles in space and astrophysical plasmas. By means of 3D fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations, we demonstrate that turbulence in low-$\beta$ plasmas ($\beta$ is the…
Particle acceleration in relativistic shocks of electron-positron plasmas with proton admixture is investigated through two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The upstream plasma, with a bulk Lorentz factor of $10$ and a…
The radiative acceleration of particles and the electrostatic potential fields that arise in low density plasmas hit by radiation produced by a transient, compact source are investigated. We calculate the dynamical evolution and asymptotic…
Air shower experiments have detected cosmic ray events of energies upto 300 EeV. Most likely these cosmic rays have originated from compact objects. Their exact sources are yet to be identified. It has been suggested before that gamma ray…
We perform Monte Carlo simulations of diffusive shock acceleration at highly relativistic oblique shock waves. High upstream flow Lorentz gamma factors are used, which are relevant to models of ultra relativistic particle shock acceleration…
Electrons in shocks are efficiently energized due to the cross-shock potential, which develops because of differential deflection of electrons and ions by the magnetic field in the shock front. The electron energization is necessarily…