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Precursor Wave Amplification by Ion-Electron Coupling through Wakefield in Relativistic Shocks
(2019)
We investigated electromagnetic precursor wave emission in relativistic shocks by using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We found that the wave amplitude is significantly enhanced by a positive feedback process associated with ion-electron coupling through the wakefields for high magnetization. The wakefields collapse during the nonlinear process of the parametric decay instability in the near-upstream region, where nonthermal electrons and ions are generated. The intense coherent emission and the particle acceleration may operate in high-energy astrophysical objects.
We explore electron preacceleration at high-Mach-number nonrelativistic perpendicular shocks at, e.g., young supernova remnants, which are a prerequisite of further acceleration to very high energies via diffusive shock acceleration. Using fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of shocks and electron dynamics in them, we investigate the influence of shock-surfing acceleration (SSA) at the shock foot on the nonthermal population of electrons downstream of the shock. The SSA is followed by further energization at the shock ramp where the Weibel instability spawns a type of second-order Fermi acceleration. The combination of these two processes leads to the formation of a nonthermal electron population, but the importance of SSA becomes smaller for larger ion-to-electron mass ratios in the simulation. We discuss the resulting electron spectra and the relevance of our results to the physics of systems with real ion-to-electron mass ratios and fully three-dimensional behavior.