Particle acceleration in the driven relativistic reconnection

Yuri Lyubarsky, Michael Liverts

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

85 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study compression-driven magnetic reconnection in a relativistic electron-positron plasma. Making use of a 2.5-dimensional particle-in-cell code, we simulated compression of a magnetized plasma layer containing a current sheet within it. We found that the particle spectrum within the reconnecting sheet becomes nonthermal; it can be approximated by a power-law distribution with an index of -1 and an exponential cutoff.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1436-1442
Number of pages7
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume682
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Aug 2008

Keywords

  • Acceleration of particles
  • Magnetic fields
  • Plasmas

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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