تقرير
Reconnection-driven particle acceleration in relativistic shear flows
| العنوان: | Reconnection-driven particle acceleration in relativistic shear flows |
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| المؤلفون: | Sironi, Lorenzo, Rowan, Michael E., Narayan, Ramesh |
| سنة النشر: | 2020 |
| المجموعة: | Astrophysics Physics (Other) |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: | Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Physics - Plasma Physics |
| الوصف: | Particle energization in shear flows is invoked to explain non-thermal emission from the boundaries of relativistic astrophysical jets. Yet, the physics of particle injection, i.e., the mechanism that allows thermal particles to participate in shear-driven acceleration, remains unknown. With particle-in-cell simulations, we study the development of Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instabilities seeded by the velocity shear between a relativistic magnetically-dominated electron-positron jet and a weakly magnetized electron-ion ambient plasma. We show that, in their nonlinear stages, KH vortices generate kinetic-scale reconnection layers, which efficiently energize the jet particles, thus providing a first-principles mechanism for particle injection into shear-driven acceleration. Our work lends support to spine-sheath models of jet emission - with a fast core/spine surrounded by a slower sheath - and can explain the origin of radio-emitting electrons at the boundaries of relativistic jets. Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 1 appendix |
| نوع الوثيقة: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.3847/2041-8213/abd9bc |
| URL الوصول: | http://arxiv.org/abs/2009.11877 |
| رقم الأكسشن: | edsarx.2009.11877 |
| قاعدة البيانات: | arXiv |
| DOI: | 10.3847/2041-8213/abd9bc |
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