Numerical Studies of Cosmic Ray Acceleration at Cosmic Shocks

Details Numerical Studies of Cosmic Ray Acceleration at Cosmic Shocks Numerical Studies of Cosmic Ray Acceleration at Cosmic Shocks

Dec 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004jkas...37..225k&link_type=abstract

Journal of the Korean Astronomical Society, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 225-232

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Acceleration Of Particles, Cosmology, Cosmic Rays, Hydrodynamics, Methods:Numerical

Scientific paper

Shocks are ubiquitous in astrophysical environments and cosmic-rays (CRs) are known to be accelerated at collisionless shocks via diffusive shock acceleration. It is believed that the CR pressure is important in the evolution of the interstellar medium of our galaxy and most of galactic CRs with energies up to ˜ 1015 eV are accelerated by supernova remnant shocks. In this contribution we have studied the CR acceleration at shocks through numerical simulation of 1D, quasi-parallel shocks for a wide range of shock Mach numbers and shock speeds. We show that CR modified shocks evolve to time-asymptotic states by the time injected particles are accelerated to moderately relativistic energies, and that two shocks with the same Mach number, but with different shock speeds, evolve qualitatively similarly when the results are presented in terms of a characteristic diffusion length and diffusion time. We find that 10-4-10-3 of the particles passed through the shock are accelerated to form the CR population, and the injection rate is higher for shocks with higher Mach number. The time asymptotic value for the CR acceleration efficiency is controlled mainly by shock Mach number, and high Mach number shocks all evolve towards efficiencies ˜ 50%, regardless of the injection rate and upstream CR pressure. We conclude that the injection rates in strong quasi-parallel shocks are sufficient to lead to significant nonlinear modifications to the shock structures, implying the importance of the CR acceleration at astrophysical shocks.

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