Expansion of a radially symmetric blast shell into a uniformly magnetized plasma

Abstract

The expansion of a thermal pressure-driven radial blast shell into a dilute ambient plasma is examined with two-dimensional PIC simulations. The purpose is to determine if laminar shocks form in a collisionless plasma that resemble their magnetohydrodynamic counterparts. The ambient plasma is composed of electrons with the temperature 2 keV and cool fully ionized nitrogen ions. It is permeated by a spatially uniform magnetic field. A forward shock forms between the shocked ambient medium and the pristine ambient medium, which changes from an ion acoustic one through a slow magnetosonic one to a fast magnetosonic shock with increasing shock propagation angles relative to the magnetic field. The slow magnetosonic shock that propagates obliquely to the magnetic field changes into a tangential discontinuity for a perpendicular propagation direction, which is in line with the magnetohydrodynamic model. The expulsion of the magnetic field by the expanding blast shell triggers an electron-cyclotron drift instability.

arXiv comment10 pages and 11 figures. Accepted for publication in the Physics of Plasmas

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Steepening of Cosmic Ray Spectra in Shocks with Varying Magnetic Field Direction
• Electron Weibel instability and~quasi-magnetostatic structures in~an~expanding collisionless plasma
• Multi-scale magnetic field structures in an expanding elongated plasma cloud with hot electrons subject to an external magnetic field
• Two-dimensional particle simulation of the boundary between a hot pair plasma and magnetized electrons and protons: out-of-plane magnetic field
• Quasi-perpendicular fast magnetosonic shock with wave precursor in collisionless plasma