Interpenetrating Plasma Shells: Near-Equipartition Magnetic Field Generation and Nonthermal Particle Acceleration

By Luis O. Silva, R. Fonseca, J. Tonge, J. M. Dawson, W. Mori, M. Medvedev. 2003

348 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the first three-dimensional fully kinetic electromagnetic relativistic "particle-in-cell" simulations of the collision of two interpenetrating plasma shells. The highly accurate plasma-kinetic particle-in-cell (with the total of 108 particles) parallel code OSIRIS has been used. Our simulations show (1) the generation of long-lived near-equipartition (electro)magnetic fields, (2) nonthermal particle acceleration, and (3) short-scale to long-scale magnetic field evolution, in the collision region. Our results provide new insights into the magnetic field generation and particle acceleration in relativistic and subrelativistic colliding streams of particles, which are present in gamma-ray bursters, supernova remnants, relativistic jets, pulsar winds, etc.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/28a668c0c22a6d05d30d91dc242a61ba14f1cecc

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. A. Spitkovsky
2. L. Sironi
3. Bing Zhang
4. J. Arons
5. Pawan Kumar
6. U. Keshet
7. M. Lemoine
8. A. Bret

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. A. Spitkovsky
2. L. Sironi
3. J. Arons
4. Bing Zhang
5. U. Keshet
6. M. Lemoine
7. Pawan Kumar
8. A. Bret

Citations in the corpus

• The physics of gamma-ray bursts & relativistic jets (2014, background): “This might be the reason for the small average AF inferred from afterglow observations; numerical simulations (Silva et al., 2003; Chang et al., 2008; Sironi and Spitkovsky, 2011), and analysis of GRB afterglow data (Lemoine et al., 2013) support this general picture of strong field near the shock…”
• Magnetic Field Generation in Collisionless Shocks: Pattern Growth and Transport (2003, methodology): “Studying relativistic collisionless Γ = 5 − 10 shocks with three-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, Frederiksen et al. (2003), Nishikawa et al. (2003), and Silva et al. (2003) investigated the generation of magnetic fields by the two-stream instability.”
• Long-Term Evolution of Magnetic Turbulence in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks: Electron-Positron Plasmas (2007, background): “An inverse cascade via current filament merging operates strongly in the foreshock region (Silva et al. 2003; Spitkovsky 2005).”
• Nonrelativistic Collisionless Shocks in Unmagnetized Electron-Ion Plasmas (2008, methodology): “…context, the Weibel instability in relativistic counterstreaming plasmas has been investigated extensively by means of particle-in-cell simulations (e.g., Kazimura et al. 1998; Gruzinov 2001; Haruki & Sakai 2003; Silva et al. 2003; Nishikawa et al. 2003; Frederiksen et al. 2004; Spitkovsky 2005).”
• WEIBEL, TWO-STREAM, FILAMENTATION, OBLIQUE, BELL, BUNEMAN...WHICH ONE GROWS FASTER? (2009, methodology): “The parameters considered in each case are reported in Table 3 and have been chosen after Karlicky (2009), Lazar et al. (2009), and Silva et al. (2003).”
• The Astrophysics of Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic Rays (2011, background): “In order to make progress on these issues, many groups are performing Particle-In-Cell simulations that endeavor to solve self-consistently the field-particle interactions (e.g., Silva et al. 2003; Hededal & Nishikawa 2005; Dieckmann et al. 2008; Spitkovsky 2008; Riquelme & Spitkovsky 2010).”
• Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks: Fermi Process at Last? (2008, background): “…relativistic shells have confirmed the general picture of the initial stages of the instability (Kazimura et al. 1998; Nishikawa et al. 2003, 2005; Silva et al. 2003; Frederiksen et al. 2004; Hededal et al. 2004), and have been evolved through the shock formation stage in both 2D (Gruzinov 2001;…”
• On the Structure of Relativistic Collisionless Shocks in Electron-Ion Plasmas (2007, methodology): “Weibel instability was simulated by a number of authors in various contexts (e.g., Nishikawa et al. 2003; Silva et al. 2003; Frederiksen et al. 2004; Medvedev et al. 2005; Nishikawa et al. 2005).”
• Relativistic Shocks: Particle Acceleration and Magnetization (2015, background): “PIC simulations have quantified the generation of upstream current filaments by pinching instabilities (e.g. Silva et al. 2003; Frederiksen et al. 2004; Jaroschek et al. 2005; Spitkovsky 2005, 2008a; Chang et al. 2008), and resolved the formation of shocks in two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D)…”