Collisional behaviors of astrophysical collisionless plasmas

Abstract

In collisional fluids, a number of key processes rely on the frequency of binary collisions. Collisions seem necessary to generate a shock wave when two fluids collide fast enough, to fulfill the Rankine–Hugoniot (RH) relations, to establish an equation of state or a Maxwellian distribution. Yet, these seemingly collisional features are routinely either observed or assumed, in relation with collisionlessastrophysical plasmas. This article will review our current answers to the following questions: How do colliding collisionless plasmas end-up generating a shock as if they were fluids? To which extent are the RH relations fulfilled in this case? Do collisionless shocks propagate like fluid ones? Can we use an equation of state to describe collisionless plasmas, like MHD codes for astrophysics do? Why are Maxwellian distributions ubiquitous in particle-in-cell simulations of collisionless shocks? Time and length scales defining the border between the collisional and the collisionless behavior will be given when relevant. In general, when the time and length scales involved in the collisionless processes responsible for the fluid-like behavior may be neglected, the system may be treated like a fluid.