Radiation-Dominated Relativistic Current Sheets

Details Radiation-Dominated Relativistic Current Sheets Radiation-Dominated Relativistic Current Sheets

Aug 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009phrvl.103g5002j&link_type=abstract

Physical Review Letters, vol. 103, Issue 7, id. 075002

Physics

9

Magnetic Reconnection, Single-Component, Electron-Positive-Ion Plasmas, Particle-In-Cell Method, Gamma-Ray Sources, Gamma-Ray Bursts

Scientific paper

Relativistic current sheets (RCSs) feature plasma instabilities considered as the potential key to magnetic energy dissipation in Poynting-flux-dominated plasma flows. Kinetic plasma simulations show that the physical nature of RCS evolution changes in the presence of radiation losses: In the ultrarelativistic regime (i.e., magnetization parameter σ=104 defined as the ratio of magnetic to plasma rest frame energy density), the combined effect of nonlinear RCS dynamics and synchrotron emission introduces a temperature anisotropy triggering the growth of the relativistic tearing mode. In contrast to previous studies of the RCS with σ˜1, the relativistic tearing mode then prevails over the drift kink mode. The ultrarelativistic RCS shows a typical life cycle from radiation-induced collapse towards a radiation-quiescent phase with topology analogous to that introduced by Sweet and Parker.

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