2023/09/01 by J. C. Faure, Faure, J. C., David Tordeux +5 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph) #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2309.00366
openalex publication_date 2023/09/01 · openalex created_date 2023/09/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We simulate, using a particle-in-cell code, the chain of acceleration processes at work during the Compton-based interaction of a dilute electron-ion plasma with an extreme-intensity, incoherent gamma-ray flux with a photon density several orders of magnitude above the particle density. The plasma electrons are initially accelerated in the radiative flux direction through Compton scattering. In turn, the charge-separation field from the induced current drives forward the plasma ions to near-relativistic speed and accelerates backwards the non-scattered electrons to energies easily exceeding those of the driving photons. The dynamics of those energized electrons is determined by the interplay of electrostatic acceleration, bulk plasma motion, inverse Compton scattering and deflections off the mobile magnetic fluctuations generated by a Weibel-type instability. The latter Fermi-like effect notably gives rise to a forward-directed suprathermal electron tail. We provide simple analytical descriptions for most of those phenomena and examine numerically their sensitivity to the parameters of the problem.