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Relativistic collisionless shocks formation in pair plasmas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2013

ANTOINE BRET ,
A. STOCKEM ,
F. FIUZA ,
C. RUYER ,
L. GREMILLET ,
R. NARAYAN  and
L. O. SILVA
ANTOINE BRET
Affiliation:
ETSI Industriales, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain (antoineclaude.bret@uclm.es)
A. STOCKEM
Affiliation:
GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear – Laboratório Associado, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal
F. FIUZA
Affiliation:
GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear – Laboratório Associado, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal
C. RUYER
Affiliation:
CEA, DAM, DIF F-91297 Arpajon, France
L. GREMILLET
Affiliation:
CEA, DAM, DIF F-91297 Arpajon, France
R. NARAYAN
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS-51 Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
L. O. SILVA
Affiliation:
GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear – Laboratório Associado, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal
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Abstract

Collisionless shocks are ubiquitous in astrophysics and in the laboratory. Recent numerical simulations and experiments have shown how these can arise from the encounter of two collisionless plasma shells. When the shells interpenetrate, the overlapping region turns unstable, triggering the shock formation. As a first step toward a microscopic understanding of the process, we here analyze in detail the initial instability phase. On the one hand, 2D relativistic PIC simulations are performed where two unmagnetized, symmetric, and initially cold pair plasmas collide. On the other hand, the instabilities at work are analyzed, as well as the field at saturation and the seed field which gets amplified. For mildly relativistic motions and onward, Weibel modes with ω=0+iδ govern the linear phase. We derive an expression for the duration of the linear phase in reasonable agreement with the simulations.

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 79 , Special Issue 4: Advanced Plasma Concepts , August 2013 , pp. 367 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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