Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Fermi-type particle acceleration from magnetic reconnection at the termination shock of a relativistic striped wind

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
An oblique-rotating pulsar generates a relativistic striped wind in a pulsar wind nebula (PWN). The termination shock of the PWN compresses the Poynting-flux-dominated flow and drives magnetic reconnection. By carrying out particle-in-cell simulations of the termination shock of the PWN, we study the shock structure as well as the energy conversion processes and particle acceleration mechanisms. With the recent advances in the numerical methods, we extend the simulations to the ultrarelativistic regime with a bulk Lorentz factor of up to γ0 = 106. Magnetic reconnection at the termination shock is highly efficient at converting magnetic energy to particle kinetic energy and accelerating particles to high energies. Similar to earlier studies, we find that the resulting energy spectra crucially depend on λ/de (λ is the wavelength of the striped wind and de is the relativistic plasma skin depth). When λ/de is large (λ ≳ 40de), the downstream particle spectra form a power-law distribution in the magnetically dominated relativistic wind regime. By analyzing particle trajectories and statistical quantities relevant to particle energization, we find that Fermi-type mechanism dominates the particle acceleration and power-law formation. We find that the results for particle acceleration are scalable as γ0 and σ0 increase to large values. The maximum energy for electrons and positrons can reach hundreds of TeV if the wind has a bulk Lorentz factor of γ0 ≈ 106 and a magnetization parameter of σ0 = 10, which can explain the recent observations of high-energy gamma rays from PWNe
Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001; NA0002721; NA0003942
OSTI ID:
1874913
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 23162959
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-20-27625
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 908; ISSN 0004-637X
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (50)

Magnetopause stability threshold for patchy reconnection journal June 1986
Numerical Cherenkov instabilities in electromagnetic particle codes journal August 1974
Time-step dependent force interpolation scheme for suppressing numerical Cherenkov instability in relativistic particle-in-cell simulations journal July 2020
A relativistic particle pusher for ultra-strong electromagnetic fields journal August 2020
Electron acceleration from contracting magnetic islands during reconnection journal October 2006
Role of electron physics in the development of turbulent magnetic reconnection in collisionless plasmas journal April 2011
Magnetic reconnection at the termination shock in a striped pulsar wind journal August 2007
The Classical Theory of Fields journal June 1963
Recent progress on particle acceleration and reconnection physics during magnetic reconnection in the magnetically-dominated relativistic regime journal August 2020
Confinement of the Crab pulsar's wind by its supernova remnant journal August 1984
Magnetohydrodynamic model of Crab nebula radiation journal August 1984
Magnetically striped relativistic magnetohydrodynamic winds - The Crab Nebula revisited journal January 1990
Dissipation in Poynting‐Flux–dominated Flows: The σ‐Problem of the Crab Pulsar Wind journal July 2003
TeV Gamma-Ray Sources from a Survey of the Galactic Plane with Milagro journal July 2007
Polarization of the Crab Pulsar and Nebula as Observed by the INTEGRAL /IBIS Telescope journal November 2008
Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Magnetized Collisionless pair Shocks: Dependence of Shock Acceleration on Magnetic Obliquity journal June 2009
Acceleration of Particles at the Termination Shock of a Relativistic Striped wind journal October 2011
Diffusive Acceleration of Particles at Oblique, Relativistic, Magnetohydrodynamic Shocks journal December 2011
Gamma-Ray Activity in the crab Nebula: the Exceptional Flare of 2011 April journal March 2012
CHANDRA , KECK, AND VLA OBSERVATIONS OF THE CRAB NEBULA DURING THE 2011-APRIL GAMMA-RAY FLARE journal February 2013
The Maximum Energy of Accelerated Particles in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks journal June 2013
Particle Acceleration and Plasma Dynamics During Magnetic Reconnection in the Magnetically Dominated Regime journal June 2015
The surprising Crab pulsar and its nebula: a review journal June 2014
Contemporary particle-in-cell approach to laser-plasma modelling journal September 2015
Relativistic Reconnection: an Efficient Source of Non-Thermal Particles journal February 2014
The Origin of the Magnetic Field and Relativistic Particles in the Crab Nebula journal April 1974
Three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the Crab nebula journal December 2013
Constraints on particle acceleration sites in the Crab nebula from relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations journal April 2015
Diffusion in pulsar wind nebulae: an investigation using magnetohydrodynamic and particle transport models journal May 2016
Interpreting Crab Nebula’s synchrotron spectrum: two acceleration mechanisms journal August 2019
HAWC observations strongly favor pulsar interpretations of the cosmic-ray positron excess journal November 2017
Generalized Fermi acceleration journal April 2019
TeV Gamma Rays from Geminga and the Origin of the GeV Positron Excess journal July 2009
High Statistics Measurement of the Positron Fraction in Primary Cosmic Rays of 0.5–500 GeV with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station journal September 2014
Formation of Hard Power Laws in the Energetic Particle Spectra Resulting from Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection journal October 2014
Inductive Spikes in the Crab Nebula: A Theory of γ -Ray Flares journal November 2017
Pulsar TeV Halos Explain the Diffuse TeV Excess Observed by Milagro journal March 2018
First Detection of Photons with Energy beyond 100 TeV from an Astrophysical Source journal July 2019
Multiple Galactic Sources with Emission Above 56 TeV Detected by HAWC journal January 2020
Polarized Gamma-Ray Emission from the Crab journal August 2008
Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula journal January 2011
Discovery of Powerful Gamma-Ray Flares from the Crab Nebula journal January 2011
Extended gamma-ray sources around pulsars constrain the origin of the positron flux at Earth journal November 2017
The Evolution and Structure of Pulsar Wind Nebulae journal September 2006
The Roles of Fluid Compression and Shear in Electron Energization during Magnetic Reconnection journal March 2018
Acceleration of X-Ray Emitting Electrons in the Crab Nebula journal August 2018
Measurement of the Crab Nebula Spectrum Past 100 TeV with HAWC journal August 2019
2003–2018 Monitoring of the Crab Nebula Polarization in Hard X-Rays with INTEGRAL SPI journal September 2019
Efficient Production of High-Energy Nonthermal Particles During Magnetic Reconnection in a Magnetically Dominated Ion–Electron Plasma journal February 2016
Determining the Dominant Acceleration Mechanism during Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection in Large-scale Systems journal July 2019

Similar Records

ACCELERATION OF PARTICLES AT THE TERMINATION SHOCK OF A RELATIVISTIC STRIPED WIND
Journal Article · Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:21612753
Magnetic reconnection at the termination shock in a striped pulsar wind
Journal Article · Tue Feb 26 23:00:00 EST 2008 · AIP Conference Proceedings · OSTI ID:21136715
Electron Acceleration at Pulsar Wind Termination Shocks
Journal Article · Tue Jan 31 23:00:00 EST 2017 · Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:22869458

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
high energy astrophysics
plasma astrophysics