2,609 research outputs found
Corrugation of relativistic magnetized shock waves
As a shock front interacts with turbulence, it develops corrugation which
induces outgoing wave modes in the downstream plasma. For a fast shock wave,
the incoming wave modes can either be fast magnetosonic waves originating from
downstream, outrunning the shock, or eigenmodes of the upstream plasma drifting
through the shock. Using linear perturbation theory in relativistic MHD, this
paper provides a general analysis of the corrugation of relativistic magnetized
fast shock waves resulting from their interaction with small amplitude
disturbances. Transfer functions characterizing the linear response for each of
the outgoing modes are calculated as a function of the magnetization of the
upstream medium and as a function of the nature of the incoming wave.
Interestingly, if the latter is an eigenmode of the upstream plasma, we find
that there exists a resonance at which the (linear) response of the shock
becomes large or even diverges. This result may have profound consequences on
the phenomenology of astrophysical relativistic magnetized shock waves.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures; to appear in Ap
Current-driven filamentation upstream of magnetized relativistic collisionless shocks
The physics of instabilities in the precursor of relativistic collisionless
shocks is of broad importance in high energy astrophysics, because these
instabilities build up the shock, control the particle acceleration process and
generate the magnetic fields in which the accelerated particles radiate. Two
crucial parameters control the micro-physics of these shocks: the magnetization
of the ambient medium and the Lorentz factor of the shock front; as of today,
much of this parameter space remains to be explored. In the present paper, we
report on a new instability upstream of electron-positron relativistic shocks
and we argue that this instability shapes the micro-physics at moderate
magnetization levels and/or large Lorentz factors. This instability is seeded
by the electric current carried by the accelerated particles in the shock
precursor as they gyrate around the background magnetic field. The compensation
current induced in the background plasma leads to an unstable configuration,
with the appearance of charge neutral filaments carrying a current of the same
polarity, oriented along the perpendicular current. This ``current-driven
filamentation'' instability grows faster than any other instability studied so
far upstream of relativistic shocks, with a growth rate comparable to the
plasma frequency. Furthermore, the compensation of the current is associated
with a slow-down of the ambient plasma as it penetrates the shock precursor (as
viewed in the shock rest frame). This slow-down of the plasma implies that the
``current driven filamentation'' instability can grow for any value of the
shock Lorentz factor, provided the magnetization \sigma <~ 10^{-2}. We argue
that this instability explains the results of recent particle-in-cell
simulations in the mildly magnetized regime.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures; to appear in MNRA
The moduli problem at the perturbative level
Moduli fields generically produce strong dark matter -- radiation and baryon
-- radiation isocurvature perturbations through their decay if they remain
light during inflation. We show that existing upper bounds on the magnitude of
such fluctuations can thus be translated into stringent constraints on the
moduli parameter space m_\sigma (modulus mass) -- \sigma_{inf} (modulus vacuum
expectation value at the end of inflation). These constraints are complementary
to previously existing bounds so that the moduli problem becomes worse at the
perturbative level. In particular, if the inflationary scale H_{inf}~10^{13}
GeV, particle physics scenarios which predict high moduli masses m_\sigma >
10-100 TeV are plagued by the perturbative moduli problem, even though they
evade big-bang nucleosynthesis constraints.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (revtex) -- v2: an important correction on the
amplitude/transfer of isocurvature modes at the end of inflation, typos
corrected, references added, basic result unchange
Detecting stable massive neutral particles through particle lensing
Stable massive neutral particles emitted by astrophysical sources undergo
deflection under the gravitational potential of our own galaxy. The deflection
angle depends on the particle velocity and therefore non-relativistic particles
will be deflected more than relativistic ones. If these particles can be
detected through neutrino telescopes, cosmic ray detectors or directional dark
matter detectors, their arrival directions would appear aligned on the sky
along the source-lens direction. On top of this deflection, the arrival
direction of non-relativistic particles is displaced with respect to the
relativistic counterpart also due to the relative motion of the source with
respect to the observer; this induces an alignment of detections along the sky
projection of the source trajectory. The final alignment will be given by a
combination of the directions induced by lensing and source proper motion. We
derive the deflection-velocity relation for the Milky Way halo and suggest that
searching for alignments on detection maps of particle telescopes could be a
way to find new particles or new astrophysical phenomena.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. Accepted by PR
Trans-Planckian Dark Energy?
It has recently been proposed by Mersini et al. 01, Bastero-Gil and Mersini
02 that the dark energy could be attributed to the cosmological properties of a
scalar field with a non-standard dispersion relation that decreases
exponentially at wave-numbers larger than Planck scale (k_phys > M_Planck). In
this scenario, the energy density stored in the modes of trans-Planckian
wave-numbers but sub-Hubble frequencies produced by amplification of the vacuum
quantum fluctuations would account naturally for the dark energy. The present
article examines this model in detail and shows step by step that it does not
work. In particular, we show that this model cannot make definite predictions
since there is no well-defined vacuum state in the region of wave-numbers
considered, hence the initial data cannot be specified unambiguously. We also
show that for most choices of initial data this scenario implies the production
of a large amount of energy density (of order M_Planck^4) for modes with
momenta of order M_Planck, far in excess of the background energy density. We
evaluate the amount of fine-tuning in the initial data necessary to avoid this
back-reaction problem and find it is of order H/M_Planck. We also argue that
the equation of state of the trans-Planckian modes is not vacuum-like.
Therefore this model does not provide a suitable explanation for the dark
energy.Comment: RevTeX - 15 pages, 7 figures: final version to appear in PRD, minor
changes, 1 figure adde
A critical approach to the concept of a polar, low-altitude LARES satellite
According to very recent developments of the LARES mission, which would be
devoted to the measurement of the general relativistic Lense--Thirring effect
in the gravitational field of the Earth with Satellite Laser Ranging, it seems
that the LARES satellite might be finally launched in a polar, low--altitude
orbit by means of a relatively low--cost rocket. The observable would be the
node only. In this letter we critically analyze this scenario.Comment: LaTex2e, 11 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in
Classical and Quantum Gravit
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