Radiation Spectral Synthesis of Relativistic Filamentation

Radiation from many astrophysical sources, e.g. gamma-ray bursts and active galactic nuclei, is believed to arise from relativistically shocked collisionless plasmas. Such sources often exhibit highly transient spectra evolving rapidly, compared with source lifetimes. Radiation emitted from these sources is typically associated with non-linear plasma physics, complex field topologies and non-thermal particle distributions. In such circumstances a standard synchrotron paradigm may fail to produce accurate conclusions regarding the underlying physics. Simulating spectral emission and spectral evolution numerically in various relativistic shock scenarios is then the only viable method to determine the detailed physical origin of the emitted spectra. In this Letter we present synthetic radiation spectra representing the early stage development of the filamentation (streaming) instability of an initially unmagnetized plasma, which is relevant for both collisionless shock formation and reconnection dynamics in relativistic astrophysical outflows, as well as for laboratory astrophysics experiments. Results were obtained using a highly efficient "in situ" diagnostics method, based on detailed particle-in-cell modeling of collisionless plasmas. The synthetic spectra obtained here are compared with those predicted by a semi-analytical model for jitter radiation from the filamentation instability, the latter including self-consistent generated field topologies and particle distributions obtained from the simulations reported upon here. Spectra exhibit dependence on the presence - or absence - of an inert plasma constituent, when comparing baryonic plasmas (i.e. containing protons) with pair plasmas. The results also illustrate that considerable care should be taken when using lower-dimensional models to obtain information about the astrophysical phenomena generating observed spectra.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted in Astrophysical Journal Letter

Synthetic Spectra from PIC Simulations of Relativistic Collisionless Shocks

We extract synthetic photon spectra from first-principles particle-in-cell simulations of relativistic shocks propagating in unmagnetized pair plasmas. The two basic ingredients for the radiation, namely accelerated particles and magnetic fields, are produced self-consistently as part of the shock evolution. We use the method of Hededal & Nordlund (2005) and compute the photon spectrum via Fourier transform of the electric far-field from a large number of particles, sampled directly from the simulation. We find that the spectrum from relativistic collisionless shocks is entirely consistent with synchrotron radiation in the magnetic fields generated by Weibel instability. We can recover the so-called "jitter'' regime only if we artificially reduce the strength of the electromagnetic fields, such that the wiggler parameter K = qB lambda/mc^2 becomes much smaller than unity ("B" and "lambda" are the strength and scale of the magnetic turbulence, respectively). These findings may place constraints on the origin of non-thermal emission in astrophysics, especially for the interpretation of the hard (harder than synchrotron) low-frequency spectrum of Gamma-Ray Bursts.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to ApJ Letter

Particle Acceleration, Magnetic Field Generation, and Emission in Relativistic Shocks

Shock acceleration is an ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., Buneman, Weibel and other two-stream instabilities) created in collisionless shocks are responsible for particle (electron, positron, and ion) acceleration. Using a 3-D relativistic electromagnetic particle (REMP) code, we have investigated particle acceleration associated with a relativistic jet front propagating into an ambient plasma. We find small differences in the results for no ambient and modest ambient magnetic fields. Simulations show that the Weibel instability created in the collisionless shock front accelerates jet and ambient particles both perpendicular and parallel to the jet propagation direction. The small scale magnetic field structure generated by the Weibel instability is appropriate to the generation of ``jitter'' radiation from deflected electrons (positrons) as opposed to synchrotron radiation. The jitter radiation resulting from small scale magnetic field structures may be important for understanding the complex time structure and spectral evolution observed in gamma-ray bursts or other astrophysical sources containing relativistic jets and relativistic collisionless shocks.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, revised and accepted for Advances in Space Research (35th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Paris, 18-25 July 2004

In-situ Particle Acceleration in Collisionless Shocks

The outflows from gamma ray bursts, active galactic nuclei and relativistic jets in general interact with the surrounding media through collisionless shocks. With three dimensional relativistic particle-in-cell simulations we investigate such shocks. The results from these experiments show that small--scale magnetic filaments with strengths of up to percents of equipartition are generated and that electrons are accelerated to power law distributions N(E)~E^{-p} in the vicinity of the filaments through a new acceleration mechanism. The acceleration is locally confined, instantaneous and differs from recursive acceleration processes such as Fermi acceleration. We find that the proposed acceleration mechanism competes with thermalization and becomes important at high Lorentz factors.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Il nuovo cimento (4th Workshop Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era, Rome, 18-22 October 2004