Relativistic, perpendicular shocks in electron-positron plasmas

Journal Article · Fri May 01 00:00:00 EDT 1992 · Astrophysical Journal; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1086/171326· OSTI ID:7287708

Gallant, Y A; Hoshino, Masahiro; Langdon, A B; Arons, J; Max, C E ^[1]

---

1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA (United States)

One-dimensional particle-in-cell plasma simulations are used to examine the mechanical structure and thermalization properties of collisionless relativistic shock waves in electron-positron plasmas. Shocks propagating perpendicularly to the magnetic field direction are considered. It is shown that these shock waves exist, and that they are completely parameterized by the ratio of the upstream Poynting flux to the upstream kinetic energy flux. The way in which the Rankine-Hugoniot shock jump conditions are modified by the presence of wave fluctuations is shown, and they are used to provide a macroscopic description of these collisionless shock flows. The results of a 2D simulation that demonstrates the generality of these results beyond the assumption of the 1D case are discussed. It is suggested that the thermalization mechanism is the formation of a synchrotron maser by the coherently reflected particles in the shock front. Because the downstream medium is thermalized, it is argued that perpendicular shocks in pure electron-positron plasmas are not candidates as nonthermal particle accelerators. 40 refs.

• OSTI ID: 7287708
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal; (United States), Vol. 391:1; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COLLISIONLESS PLASMA
SHOCK WAVES
ACCRETION DISKS
BLACK HOLES
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
ELECTRON PAIRS
GALAXY NUCLEI
INTERSTELLAR MAGNETIC FIELDS
MASERS
PLASMA
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
SUPERNOVA REMNANTS
THERMALIZATION
WAVE PROPAGATION
AMPLIFIERS
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
ENERGY RANGE
EQUIPMENT
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MICROWAVE AMPLIFIERS
MICROWAVE EQUIPMENT
SIMULATION
SLOWING-DOWN
661300* - Other Aspects of Physical Science- (1992-)