Electron Slingshot Acceleration in Relativistic Preturbulent Shocks Explored via Emitted Photon Polarization

Gong, Zheng; Shen, Xiaofei; Hatsagortsyan, Karen Z.; Keitel, Christoph H.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.131.225101

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 96 publications

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“…Collisionless shocks abound in the Universe and are widely studied from the non-relativistic to the relativistic case. [1][2][3] They are, in particular, supposed to be the source of high-energy cosmic rays in high-energy astrophysical environments and under various effects involving for instance turbulence and magnetic fields. 4 As a consequence of the propagation of these accelerated charged particles, such shocks may generate a precursor ahead of the shock.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study of radiative shocks using 2D interferometry and XUV spectroscopy

Singh,

Stehlé,

Kozlova

et al. 2024

Physics of Plasmas

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We report new experimental results on radiative shocks obtained in Xenon and Argon in gas cells at two different pressures below 1 bar. These shock waves are generated by the interaction of the PALS iodine laser on a CH–Au foil with a typical velocity in the range of 50–100 km/s depending on the variable laser intensity, pressure, and gas. Attention is paid to the morphology and the dynamics of the radiative precursor over large time scales up to 30 ns, using 2D sub-picosecond visible interferometry, illustrating the complex interplay of hydrodynamic and radiation absorption for different initial conditions. The comparison between 1D and 2D simulations confirms the role played by lateral radiative losses in the ionization wave and the necessity of state-of-the-art integrated opacities. This study is complemented by the first XUV analysis of the shock emission between 5 and 20 nm obtained with a grating spectrometer, with line identification, which is compatible with the ionization stages deduced from interferometry and simulations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study of radiative shocks using 2D interferometry and XUV spectroscopy

Singh,

Stehlé,

Kozlova

et al. 2024

Physics of Plasmas

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Suppression and excitation by collisions of two-stream and bump-on-tail instabilities

Hou,

Yu,

Wang

et al. 2024

Physics of Plasmas

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Two-stream (TS) and bump-on-tail (BOT) electron distributions in plasma can lead to electrostatic instabilities and turbulence, and they have been extensively studied. Collisions usually mitigate these instabilities since they tend to hinder the motion of the participating electrons. Here, we numerically solve the full Vlasov–Poisson equations with Krook collisions to reconsider the evolution of the TS and BOT instabilities. It is found that even in the stable parameter regime predicted by linear theory, during the initial evolution (i.e., damping) stage, collisions can excite the TS instability. The reason is that during the evolution, efficient Krook collisions cause rapid thermalization of the TS electrons, leading to broadening of the initial velocity distributions of the two beams and appearance of regimes with unstable velocity gradients and trapped electrons. On the contrary, such a behavior does not occur for the BOT instability.

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Polarized QED cascades over pulsar polar caps

Song,

Tamburini

2024

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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The formation of e± plasmas within pulsar magnetospheres through quantum electrodynamics (QED) cascades in vacuum gaps is widely acknowledged. This paper aims to investigate the effect of photon polarization during the QED cascade occurring over the polar cap of a pulsar. We employ a Monte Carlo-based QED algorithm that accurately accounts for both spin and polarization effects during photon emission and pair production in both single-particle and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Our findings reveal distinctive properties in the photon polarization of curvature radiation (CR) and synchrotron radiation (SR). CR photons exhibit high linear polarization parallel to the plane of the curved magnetic field lines, whereas SR photons, on average, demonstrate weak polarization. As the QED cascade progresses, SR photons gradually dominate over CR photons, thus reducing the average degree of photon polarization. Additionally, our study highlights an intriguing observation: the polarization of CR photons enhances e± pair production by approximately 5%, in contrast to the inhibition observed in laser-plasma interactions. Our self-consistent QED PIC simulations in the corotating frame reproduce the essential results obtained from single-particle simulations.

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Electron Slingshot Acceleration in Relativistic Preturbulent Shocks Explored via Emitted Photon Polarization

Cited by 3 publications

References 96 publications

Study of radiative shocks using 2D interferometry and XUV spectroscopy

Study of radiative shocks using 2D interferometry and XUV spectroscopy

Suppression and excitation by collisions of two-stream and bump-on-tail instabilities

Polarized QED cascades over pulsar polar caps

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