Relativistic Collisionless Shocks in Unmagnetized Electron-Positron Plasmas

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that collisionless shock waves can be generated in unmagnetized electron-positron plasmas through Weibel-like instabilities, leading to magnetic field generation and complex particle interactions, without significant particle acceleration.

Contribution

First simulation showing relativistic collisionless shocks in unmagnetized electron-positron plasmas driven by plasma instabilities.

Findings

Magnetic fields generated by Weibel-like instability at shock transition.

Shock propagates at nearly constant speed without linear wave support.

Downstream particles can return upstream, causing charge separation and field generation.

Abstract

It is shown that collisionless shock waves can be driven in unmagnetized electron-positron plasmas by performing a two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. At the shock transition region, strong magnetic fields are generated by a Weibel-like instability. The generated magnetic fields are strong enough to deflect the incoming particles from upstream of the shock at a large angle and provide an effective dissipation mechanism for the shock. The structure of the collisionless shock propagates at an almost constant speed. There is no linear wave corresponding to the shock wave and therefore this can be regarded as a kind of ``instability-driven'' shock wave. The generated magnetic fields rapidly decay in the downstream region. It is also observed that a fraction of the thermalized particles in the downstream region return upstream through the shock transition region. These particles interact with the upstream incoming particles and cause the generation of charge-separated current filaments in the upstream of the shock as well as the electrostatic beam instability. As a result, electric and magnetic fields are generated even upstream of the shock transition region. No efficient acceleration processes of particles were observed in our simulation.