Electron Heating by the Ion Cyclotron Instability in Collisionless Accretion Flows. II. Electron Heating Efficiency as a Function of Flow Conditions

In the innermost regions of low-luminosity accretion flows, including Sgr A* at the center of our Galaxy, the frequency of Coulomb collisions is so low that the plasma is two-temperature, with the ions substantially hotter than the electrons. This paradigm assumes that Coulomb collisions are the only channel for transferring the ion energy to the electrons. In this work, the second of a series, we assess the efficiency of electron heating by ion velocity-space instabilities in collisionless accretion flows. The instabilities are seeded by the pressure anisotropy induced by magnetic field amplification, coupled to the adiabatic invariance of the particle magnetic moments. Using two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, we showed in Paper I that if the electron-to-ion temperature ratio is < 0.2, the ion cyclotron instability is the dominant mode for values of ion beta_i ~ 5-30 (here, beta_i is the ratio of ion thermal pressure to magnetic pressure), as appropriate for the midplane of low-luminosity accretion flows. In this work, we employ analytical theory and 1D PIC simulations (with the box aligned with the fastest growing wavevector of the ion cyclotron mode) to fully characterize how the electron heating efficiency during the growth of the ion cyclotron instability depends on the electron-to-proton temperature ratio, the plasma beta, the Alfven speed, the amplification rate of the mean field (in units of the ion Larmor frequency) and the proton-to-electron mass ratio. Our findings can be incorporated as a physically-grounded sub-grid model into global fluid simulations of low-luminosity accretion flows, thus helping to assess the validity of the two-temperature assumption.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, 6 tables, 2 appendices, submitted to ApJ. Paper I appeared on Monday November 24t

Production of magnetic energy by macroscopic turbulence in GRB afterglows

Afterglows of gamma-ray bursts are believed to require magnetic fields much stronger than that of the compressed pre-shock medium. As an alternative to microscopic plasma instabilities, we propose amplification of the field by macroscopic turbulence excited by the interaction of the shock with a clumpy pre-shock medium, for example a stellar wind. Using a recently developed formalism for localized perturbations to an ultra-relativistic shock, we derive constraints on the lengthscale, amplitude, and volume filling factor of density clumps required to produce a given magnetic energy fraction within the expansion time of the shock, assuming that the energy in the field achieves equipartion with the turbulence. Stronger and smaller-scale inhomogeneities are required for larger shock Lorentz factors. Hence it is likely that the magnetic energy fraction evolves as the shock slows. This could be detected by monitoring the synchrotron cooling frequency if the radial density profile ahead of the shock, smoothed over clumps, is known.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figure

Relativistic Reconnection: an Efficient Source of Non-Thermal Particles

In magnetized astrophysical outflows, the dissipation of field energy into particle energy via magnetic reconnection is often invoked to explain the observed non-thermal signatures. By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate anti-parallel reconnection in magnetically-dominated electron-positron plasmas. Our simulations extend to unprecedentedly long temporal and spatial scales, so we can capture the asymptotic state of the system beyond the initial transients, and without any artificial limitation by the boundary conditions. At late times, the reconnection layer is organized into a chain of large magnetic islands connected by thin X-lines. The plasmoid instability further fragments each X-line into a series of smaller islands, separated by X-points. At the X-points, the particles become unmagnetized and they get accelerated along the reconnection electric field. We provide definitive evidence that the late-time particle spectrum integrated over the whole reconnection region is a power-law, whose slope is harder than -2 for magnetizations sigma>10. Efficient particle acceleration to non-thermal energies is a generic by-product of the long-term evolution of relativistic reconnection in both two and three dimensions. In three dimensions, the drift-kink mode corrugates the reconnection layer at early times, but the long-term evolution is controlled by the plasmoid instability, that facilitates efficient particle acceleration, in analogy to the two-dimensional physics. Our findings have important implications for the generation of hard photon spectra in pulsar winds and relativistic astrophysical jets.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, ApJL accepted, movies available at https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~lsironi/Site/sigma10.no.guide.field

Relativistic Shocks: Particle Acceleration and Magnetization

We review the physics of relativistic shocks, which are often invoked as the sources of non-thermal particles in pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets, and as possible sources of ultra-high energy cosmic-rays. We focus on particle acceleration and magnetic field generation, and describe the recent progress in the field driven by theory advances and by the rapid development of particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. In weakly magnetized or quasi parallel-shocks (where the magnetic field is nearly aligned with the flow), particle acceleration is efficient. The accelerated particles stream ahead of the shock, where they generate strong magnetic waves which in turn scatter the particles back and forth across the shock, mediating their acceleration. In contrast, in strongly magnetized quasi-perpendicular shocks, the efficiencies of both particle acceleration and magnetic field generation are suppressed. Particle acceleration, when efficient, modifies the turbulence around the shock on a long time scale, and the accelerated particles have a characteristic energy spectral index of ~ 2.2 in the ultra-relativistic limit. We discuss how this novel understanding of particle acceleration and magnetic field generation in relativistic shocks can be applied to high-energy astrophysical phenomena, with an emphasis on PWNe and GRB afterglows.Comment: 32 pages; 9 figures; invited topical review, comments welcome; submitted for publication in "The Strongest Magnetic Fields in the Universe" (Space Sciences Series of ISSI, Springer), Space Science Review