Impact of continuous particle injection on generation and decay of the magnetic field in collisionless shocks

TL;DR

This paper uses numerical simulations to study how continuous particle injection influences magnetic field generation and decay in collisionless shocks, revealing large-scale magnetic structures that persist and decay slowly, consistent with phase mixing models.

Contribution

It demonstrates that long-term anisotropic particle injection leads to large-scale magnetic fields in shocks, aligning with phase mixing predictions and explaining efficient synchrotron emission in Gamma-Ray Bursts.

Findings

Large-scale magnetic structures form due to continuous injection.

Magnetic field decay aligns with phase mixing model predictions.

Magnetic fields persist for timescales comparable to injection duration.

Abstract

We present numerical simulations of the magnetic field turbulence in collisionless electron-positron plasma with continuous injection of new pairs, which maintains anisotropy in the particle distribution over long time. {With these simulations we follow evolution of a small (and therefore uniform) region in the fluid comoving frame modelling} generation and decay of the magnetic field in shocks, where the upstream is modified by two-photon pair production due to self-absorption of the shock's high-energy radiation. We find that the overall picture of magnetic field build-up is consistent with development of Weibel instability. However, the long-term injection of anisotropic pairs in the upstream leads to formation of large-scale structures in the magnetic field, while the small-scale structures are almost absent. We find that being amplified at the shock front this magnetic field mostly preserves its large spatial scale and then slowly decays in the downstream on a timescale approximately equal to duration of the injection phase. The observed decay of the magnetic field is in exceptionally good agreement with predictions of the so-called phase mixing model. Generation of the long-lived magnetic field in relativistic collisionless shocks with injection-modified upstream explains how they can efficiently produce the synchrotron radiation in Gamma-Ray Bursts.