Particle acceleration in the driven relativistic reconnection

TL;DR

This paper investigates relativistic magnetic reconnection driven by compression in electron-positron plasmas, revealing non-thermal particle spectra with power-law distributions through particle-in-cell simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation study of compression-driven reconnection in relativistic plasmas, highlighting the resulting non-thermal particle acceleration and spectral features.

Findings

Particle spectra become non-thermal during reconnection

Spectra follow a power-law with index -1 and exponential cutoff

Simulation demonstrates efficient particle acceleration in relativistic reconnection

Abstract

We study the compression driven magnetic reconnection in the relativistic electron-positron plasma. Making use of a 2.5D 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 non-thermal; it could be approximated by a power-law distribution with an index of -1 and an exponential cutoff.