Particle Acceleration by Pickup Process Upstream of Relativistic Shocks

Particle acceleration at magnetized purely perpendicular relativistic shocks in electron-ion plasmas are studied by means of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Magnetized shocks with the upstream bulk Lorentz factor $\gamma_1 \gg 1$ are known to emit intense electromagnetic waves from the shock front, which induce electrostatic plasma waves (wakefield) and transverse filamentary structures in the upstream region via the stimulated/induced Raman scattering and the filamentation instability, respectively. The wakefield and filaments inject a fraction of incoming particles into a particle acceleration process, in which particles are once decoupled from the upstream bulk flow by the wakefield, and are piked up again by the flow. The picked-up particles are accelerated by the motional electric field. The maximum attainable Lorentz factor is estimated as $\gamma_{max,e} \sim \alpha\gamma_1^3$ for electrons and $\gamma_{max,i} \sim (1+m_e\gamma_1/m_i)\gamma_1^2$ for ions, where $\alpha \sim 10$ is determined from our simulation results. $\alpha$ can increase up to $\gamma_1$ for weakly magnetized shock if $\gamma_1$ is sufficiently large. This result indicates that highly relativistic astrophysical shocks such as external shocks of gamma-ray bursts can be an efficient particle accelerator.
Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, accepted to ApJ