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Rapid Particle Acceleration due to Recollimation Shocks and Turbulent Magnetic Fields in Injected Jets with Helical Magnetic Fields

Authors :
Nishikawa, Kenichi
Mizuno, Yosuke
Gomez, Jose L.
Dutan, Ioana
Niemiec, Jacek
Kobzar, Oleh
MacDonald, Nicholas
Meli, Athina
Pohl, Martin
Hirotani, Kouichi
Source :
MNRAS, 493, 2652-2658, 2020
Publication Year :
2019

Abstract

One of the key questions in the study of relativistic jets is how magnetic reconnection occurs and whether it can effectively accelerate electrons in the jet. We performed 3D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of a relativistic electron-proton jet of relatively large radius that carries a helical magnetic field. We focussed our investigation on the interaction between the jet and the ambient plasma and explore how the helical magnetic field affects the excitation of kinetic instabilities such as the Weibel instability (WI), the kinetic Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (kKHI), and the mushroom instability (MI). In our simulations these kinetic instabilities are indeed excited, and particles are accelerated. At the linear stage we observe recollimation shocks near the center of the jet. As the electron-proton jet evolves into the deep nonlinear stage, the helical magnetic field becomes untangled due to reconnection-like phenomena, and electrons are repeatedly accelerated as they encounter magnetic-reconnection events in the turbulent magnetic field.<br />Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJL, movie will be added (dBtotByz11MF_011.mp4 5.8MB), significantly revised with corrected figures. After rejected by ApJL, MNRAS, in press, 8 pages, 6 figures, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa421

Details

Database :
arXiv
Journal :
MNRAS, 493, 2652-2658, 2020
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.1906.10302
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa421