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Simulation study of the formation of a non-relativistic pair shock

Part of: Focus on Plasma Astrophysics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2017

M. E. Dieckmann Open the ORCID record for M. E. Dieckmann [Opens in a new window]  and
A. Bret
M. E. Dieckmann*
Affiliation:
Department of Science and Technology (ITN), Linkoping University, Campus Norrkoping, 60174 Norrkoping, Sweden
A. Bret
Affiliation:
University of Castilla La Mancha, ETSI Ind, E-13071 Ciudad Real, Spain Instituto de Investigaciones Energéticas y Aplicaciones Industriales, Campus Universitario de Ciudad Real, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain
*
†Email address for correspondence: mark.e.dieckmann@liu.se
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Abstract

We examine with a particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation the collision of two equally dense clouds of cold pair plasma. The clouds interpenetrate until instabilities set in, which heat up the plasma and trigger the formation of a pair of shocks. The fastest-growing waves at the collision speed $c/5$, where $c$ is the speed of light in vacuum, and low temperature are the electrostatic two-stream mode and the quasi-electrostatic oblique mode. Both waves grow and saturate via the formation of phase space vortices. The strong electric fields of these nonlinear plasma structures provide an efficient means of heating up and compressing the inflowing upstream leptons. The interaction of the hot leptons, which leak back into the upstream region, with the inflowing cool upstream leptons continuously drives electrostatic waves that mediate the shock. These waves heat up the inflowing upstream leptons primarily along the shock normal, which results in an anisotropic velocity distribution in the post-shock region. This distribution gives rise to the Weibel instability. Our simulation shows that even if the shock is mediated by quasi-electrostatic waves, strong magnetowaves will still develop in its downstream region.

Keywords

plasma instabilitiesplasma nonlinear phenomenaplasma simulation
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , 905830104
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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