Relativistic Positron-Electron-Ion Shear Flows and Application to Gamma-Ray Bursts

TL;DR

This paper uses Particle-in-Cell simulations to study relativistic shear flows in hybrid positron-electron-ion plasmas, revealing unique electron energization features relevant to gamma-ray burst modeling.

Contribution

It demonstrates that hybrid positron-electron-ion shear flows uniquely energize electrons, unlike pure plasmas, providing insights into gamma-ray burst emission mechanisms.

Findings

Hybrid shear flows energize electrons to form high-energy peaks.

Pure e+e- and e-ion flows do not produce similar electron spectra.

Results are relevant for modeling gamma-ray burst emissions.

Abstract

We present Particle-in-Cell simulation results of relativistic shear flows for hybrid positron-electron-ion plasmas and compare to those for pure e+e- and pure e-ion plasmas. Among the three types of relativistic shear flows, we find that only hybrid shear flow is able to energize the electrons to form a high-energy spectral peak plus a hard power-law tail. Such electron spectra are needed to model the observational properties of gamma-ray bursts.