Physics and Phenomenology of Weakly Magnetized, Relativistic Astrophysical Shock Waves

Arno Vanthieghem (1, 2) , Martin Lemoine (2) , Illya Plotnikov (3) , Anna Grassi (1, 4) , Mickael Grech (4) , Laurent Gremillet , Guy Pelletier (5)

1 SLAC - SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
2 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
3 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
4 LULI - Laboratoire pour l'utilisation des lasers intenses
5 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble

Weakly magnetized, relativistic collisionless shock waves are not only the natural offsprings of relativistic jets in high-energy astrophysical sources, they are also associated with some of the most outstanding displays of energy dissipation through particle acceleration and radiation. Perhaps their most peculiar and exciting feature is that the magnetized turbulence that sustains the acceleration process, and (possibly) the secondary radiation itself, is self-excited by the accelerated particles themselves, so that the phenomenology of these shock waves hinges strongly on the microphysics of the shock. In this review, we draw a status report of this microphysics, benchmarking analytical arguments with particle-in-cell simulations, and extract consequences of direct interest to the phenomenology, regarding in particular the so-called microphysical parameters used in phenomenological studies.

Mots clés: Collisionless shock in plasma; shock waves and discontinuities; cosmic ray acceleration; plasma microinstabilities

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Arno Vanthieghem, Martin Lemoine, Illya Plotnikov, Anna Grassi, Mickael Grech, et al.. Physics and Phenomenology of Weakly Magnetized, Relativistic Astrophysical Shock Waves. Galaxies, 2020, 8 (2), pp.33. ⟨10.3390/galaxies8020033⟩. ⟨hal-03036382⟩