Magnetically driven coupling in relativistic radiation-mediated shocks

Abstract

The radiation drag in photon-rich environments of cosmic explosions can seed kinetic instabilities by inducing velocity spreads between relativistically streaming plasma components. Such microturbulence is likely imprinted on the breakout signals of radiation-mediated shocks. However, large-scale, transverse magnetic fields in the deceleration region of the shock transition can suppress the dominant kinetic instabilities by preventing the development of velocity separations between electron-positron pairs and a heavy ion species. We use a one-dimensional (1D) five-fluid radiative transfer code to generate self-consistent profiles of the radiation drag force and plasma composition in the deceleration region. For increasing magnetization, our models predict rapidly growing pair multiplicities and a substantial radiative drag developing self-similarly throughout the deceleration region. We extract the critical magnetization parameter ${\sigma }_c$, determining the limiting magnetic field strength at which a three-species plasma can develop kinetic instabilities before reaching the isotropized downstream. For a relativistic, single ion plasma drifting with ${\gamma }_u=10$ in the upstream of a relativistic radiation-mediated shock, we find the threshold ${\sigma }_c\approx 10^{-7}$ for the onset of microturbulence. Suppression of plasma instabilities in the case of multi-ion composition would likely require much higher values of ${\sigma }_c$. Identifying high-energy signatures of microturbulence in shock-breakout signals and combining them with the magnetization limits provided in this work will allow a deeper understanding of the magnetic environment of cosmic explosions like supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and neutron star binary mergers.

arXiv comment12 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication by MNRAS

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