Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Jets Due to Weibel Instability

By K. Nishikawa, P. Hardee, G. Richardson, R. Preece, H. Sol, G. Fishman. 2003

178 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Shock acceleration is a ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., the Buneman instability, two-streaming instability, and the Weibel instability) created in the shocks are responsible for particle (electron, positron, and ion) acceleration. Using a three-dimensional relativistic electromagnetic particle code, we have investigated particle acceleration associated with a relativistic jet front propagating through an ambient plasma with and without initial magnetic fields. We find only small differences in the results between no ambient and weak ambient magnetic fields. Simulations show that the Weibel instability created in the collisionless shock front accelerates particles perpendicular and parallel to the jet propagation direction. While some Fermi acceleration may occur at the jet front, the majority of electron acceleration takes place behind the jet front and cannot be characterized as Fermi acceleration. The simulation results show that this instability is responsible for generating and amplifying highly nonuniform, small-scale magnetic fields, which contribute to the electron's transverse deflection behind the jet head. The "jitter" radiation from deflected electrons has different properties than synchrotron radiation which is calculated in a uniform magnetic field. This jitter radiation may be important to understanding the complex time evolution and/or spectral structure in gamma-ray bursts, relativistic jets, and supernova remnants.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e1598c1d4ce06744dd5cb2a8ad5a14148ab2a874

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. J. Arons
3. L. Sironi
4. A. Bret
5. H. Takabe
6. Bing Zhang
7. T. Kato
8. Åke Nordlund

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. A. Spitkovsky
2. J. Arons
3. Bing Zhang
4. A. Bret
5. L. Sironi
6. H. Takabe
7. T. Kato
8. P. Chang

Citations in the corpus

• 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).”
• Long-Term Evolution of Magnetic Turbulence in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks: Electron-Positron Plasmas (2007, background): “However, present simulations (Kazimura et al. 1998; Silva et al. 2003; Frederiksen et al. 2004; Hededal et al. 2005; Nishikawa et al. 2003, 2005) have not followed the flow through the shock transition layer into the downstream region because they employ periodic boundary conditions, are too small,…”
• Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks: Fermi Process at Last? (2008, background): “PIC simulations of colliding 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…”
• 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).”
• Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era (2007, background): “…and analytical studies have started to answer the fundamental questions about particle acceleration and magnetic field generation (e.g., Medvedev& Loeb 1999; Nishikawa et al. 2003, 2005; Liang & Nishimura 2004; Hededal & Nishikawa 2005; Spitkovsky 2005; Kato 2005; Milosavljevic & Nakar 2006a, b).”
• 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.”
• WEIBEL, TWO-STREAM, FILAMENTATION, OBLIQUE, BELL, BUNEMAN...WHICH ONE GROWS FASTER? (2009, background): “These kind of structures are currently extensively studied by means of PIC simulations (Medvedev & Loeb 1999; Silva et al. 2003; Nishikawa et al. 2003; Milosavljevic et al. 2006; Chang et al. 2008; Spitkovsky 2008a, 2008b; Martins et al. 2009), due to their role in the Fireball model for gamma-ray…”