Relativistic Particle Acceleration in a Folded Current Sheet
arXiv:astro-ph/0411373 · doi:10.1086/427873
Abstract
Two-dimensional particle simulations of a relativistic Harris current sheet of pair plasmashave demonstrated that the system is unstable to the relativistic drift kink instability (RDKI) and that a new kind of acceleration process takes place in the deformed current sheet. This process contributes to the generation of non-thermal particles and contributes to the fast magnetic dissipation in the current sheet structure. The acceleration mechanism and a brief comparison with relativistic magnetic reconnection are presented.
11 preprint pages, including 3 .eps figures