Formation of Hard Power-laws in the Energetic Particle Spectra Resulting from Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through kinetic simulations that relativistic magnetic reconnection efficiently accelerates particles, producing hard power-law spectra with spectral index approaching 1, especially at high magnetization levels.

Contribution

The study introduces a new kinetic simulation analysis showing how relativistic magnetic reconnection generates hard power-law particle spectra with a simple predictive model.

Findings

Power-law spectra form when $\sigma > 1$ and system size is large.

Spectral index approaches $p=1$ at high $\sigma$.

Most energy converts into non-thermal particles at high $\sigma$.

Abstract

Using fully kinetic simulations, we demonstrate that magnetic reconnection in relativistic plasmas is highly efficient at accelerating particles through a first-order Fermi process resulting from the curvature drift of particles in the direction of the electric field induced by the relativistic flows. This mechanism gives rise to the formation of hard power-law spectra in parameter regimes where the energy density in the reconnecting field exceeds the rest mass energy density $\sigma \equiv B^2/(4 \pi n m_ec^2) > 1$ and when the system size is sufficiently large. In the limit $\sigma \gg 1$, the spectral index approaches $p=1$ and most of the available energy is converted into non-thermal particles. A simple analytic model is proposed which explains these key features and predicts a general condition under which hard power-law spectra will be generated from magnetic reconnection.