Potential drops above pulsar polar caps - Ultrarelativistic particle acceleration along the curved magnetic field

1978 ◽  
Vol 222 ◽  
pp. 297 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. T. Scharlemann ◽  
J. Arons ◽  
W. M. Fawley
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Polar Caps

scholarly journals The Evolution of the Solar Magnetic Field

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (H16) ◽  
pp. 86-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Todd Hoeksema
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Solar Cycle ◽  
Solar Magnetic Field ◽  
Coronal Holes ◽  
Active Regions ◽  
Statistical Characteristics ◽  
Field Pattern ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Polar Caps ◽  
Magnetic Elements

AbstractThe almost stately evolution of the global heliospheric magnetic field pattern during most of the solar cycle belies the intense dynamic interplay of photospheric and coronal flux concentrations on scales both large and small. The statistical characteristics of emerging bipoles and active regions lead to development of systematic magnetic patterns. Diffusion and flows impel features to interact constructively and destructively, and on longer time scales they may help drive the creation of new flux. Peculiar properties of the components in each solar cycle determine the specific details and provide additional clues about their sources. The interactions of complex developing features with the existing global magnetic environment drive impulsive events on all scales. Predominantly new-polarity surges originating in active regions at low latitudes can reach the poles in a year or two. Coronal holes and polar caps composed of short-lived, small-scale magnetic elements can persist for months and years. Advanced models coupled with comprehensive measurements of the visible solar surface, as well as the interior, corona, and heliosphere promise to revolutionize our understanding of the hierarchy we call the solar magnetic field.

Condensed Surfaces of Magnetic Neutron Stars and Particle Acceleration Above Pulsar Polar Caps

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zach Medin ◽  
Dong Lai ◽  
C. Bassa ◽  
Z. Wang ◽  
A. Cumming ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Neutron Stars ◽  
Polar Caps

scholarly journals Relativistic Particle Acceleration in Plerions

1994 ◽  
Vol 142 ◽  
pp. 797-806
Author(s):  
Jonathan Arons ◽  
Marco Tavani
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Shock Waves ◽  
Shock Front ◽  
Heavy Ions ◽  
Surface Brightness ◽  
Crab Nebula ◽  
Electrons And Positrons ◽  
The Crab Nebula ◽  
The Magnetic Field

AbstractWe discuss recent research on the structure and particle acceleration properties of relativistic shock waves in which the magnetic field is transverse to the flow direction in the upstream medium, and whose composition is either pure electrons and positrons or primarily electrons and positrons with an admixture of heavy ions. Particle-in-cell simulation techniques as well as analytic theory have been used to show that such shocks in pure pair plasmas are fully thermalized—the downstream particle spectra are relativistic Maxwellians at the temperature expected from the jump conditions. On the other hand, shocks containing heavy ions which are a minority constituent by number but which carry most of the energy density in the upstream medium do put ~20% of the flow energy into a nonthermal population of pairs downstream, whose distribution in energy space is N(E) ∝ E−2, where N(E)dE is the number of particles with energy between E and E + dE.The mechanism of thermalization and particle acceleration is found to be synchrotron maser activity in the shock front, stimulated by the quasi-coherent gyration of the whole particle population as the plasma flowing into the shock reflects from the magnetic field in the shock front. The synchrotron maser modes radiated by the heavy ions are absorbed by the pairs at their (relativistic) cyclotron frequencies, allowing the maximum energy achievable by the pairs to be γ±m±c2 = mic2γ1/Zi, where γ1 is the Lorentz factor of the upstream flow and Zi, is the atomic number of the ions. The shock’s spatial structure is shown to contain a series of “overshoots” in the magnetic field, regions where the gyrating heavy ions compress the magnetic field to levels in excess of the eventual downstream value.This shock model is applied to an interpretation of the structure of the inner regions of the Crab Nebula, in particular to the “wisps,” surface brightness enhancements near the pulsar. We argue that these surface brightness enhancements are the regions of magnetic overshoot, which appear brighter because the small Larmor radius pairs are compressed and radiate more efficiently in the regions of more intense magnetic field. This interpretation suggests that the structure of the shock terminating the pulsar’s wind in the Crab Nebula is spatially resolved, and allows one to measure γ1, and a number of other properties of the pulsar’s wind. We also discuss applications of the shock theory to the termination shocks of the winds from rotation-powered pulsars embedded in compact binaries. We show that this model adequately accounts for (and indeed predicted) the recently discovered X-ray flux from PSR 1957+20, and we discuss several other applications to other examples of these systems.Subject headings: acceleration of particles — ISM: individual (Crab Nebula) — relativity — shock waves

Particle Acceleration at Corotating Shocks: Ulysses Magnetic Field and Particle Observations

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward J. Smith ◽  
Xiaoyan Zhou ◽  
Gang Li ◽  
Qiang Hu ◽  
Olga Verkhoglyadova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Particle Acceleration

scholarly journals Hybrid numerical simulations of pulsar magnetospheres

2019 ◽  
Vol 491 (4) ◽  
pp. 5579-5585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Contopoulos ◽  
Jerome Pétri ◽  
Petros Stefanou
Keyword(s):  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Current Sheet ◽  
Electric Current ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Analytic Approximations ◽  
Polar Caps ◽  
Electron Positron ◽  
Field Lines

ABSTRACT We continue our investigation of particle acceleration in the pulsar equatorial current sheet (ECS). Our basic premise has been that the charge carriers in the current sheet originate in the polar caps as electron–positron pairs, and are carried along field lines that enter the ECS beyond the magnetospheric Y-point. In this work, we investigate further the charge replenishment of the ECS. We discovered that the flow of pairs from the rims of the polar caps cannot supply both the electric charge and the electric current of the ECS. The ECS must contain an extra amount of positronic (or electronic depending on orientation) electric current that originates in the stellar surface and flows outwards along the separatrices. We develop an iterative hybrid approach that self-consistently combines ideal force-free electrodynamics in the bulk of the magnetosphere with particle acceleration along the ECS. We derive analytic approximations for the orbits of the particles, and obtain the structure of the pulsar magnetosphere for various values of the pair formation multiplicity parameter κ. For realistic values κ ≫ 1, the magnetosphere is practically indistinguishable from the ideal force-free one, and therefore, the calculation of the spectrum of high energy radiation must rely on analytic approximations for the distribution of the accelerating electric field in the ECS.

Particle acceleration by interstellar plasma shock waves in non-uniform background magnetic field

2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (4) ◽  
pp. 5517-5523
Author(s):  
P Rashed-Mohassel ◽  
M Ghorbanalilu
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Particle Acceleration ◽  
Shock Waves ◽  
Electric Field ◽  
Background Field ◽  
Magnetized Plasma ◽  
Background Magnetic Field ◽  
Positive Variation ◽  
Uniform Background ◽  
Plasma Shock

ABSTRACT Particle acceleration by plasma shock waves is investigated for a magnetized plasma cloud propagating in a non-uniform background magnetic field by means of analytical and numerical calculations. The mechanism studied here is mainly, magnetic trapping acceleration (MTA) which is previously investigated for a cloud moving through the uniform interstellar magnetic field (IMF). In this work, the acceleration is studied for a cloud moving in an antiparallel background field with spatial variations along the direction of motion. For negative variation, the cloud moves towards an antiparallel magnetic field with an increasing intensity, the trapped particle moves to locations with higher convective electric field and therefore gains more energy over time. For positive variation, the background field decreases to zero and changes into a parallel field with an increasing intensity. It is concluded that, when the background field vanishes, the MTA mechanism ceases and the particle escapes into the space. This leads to a bouncing acceleration which further increases energy of the gyrating particle. The two processes are followed by a shock drift acceleration, where due to the background magnetic field gradient, the particle drifts along the electric field and gains energy. Although for positive variation, three different mechanisms are involved, energy gain is less than in the case of a uniform background field.

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