Evaluating MHD parameters of relativistic shock waves with particle-in-cell modeling

Abstract

Abstract Relativistic plasma outflows are observed in gamma-ray burst sources, jets of active galactic nuclei, pulsar wind nebulae and supernovae explosions. Magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) shock waves inevitably result from interactions of such relativistic outflows with the ambient interstellar matter. The widely used single-fluid MHD description of relativistic shock waves is the main tool to study the global structure of such objects. However, to justify the validity of the global MHD models and to interpret the observed emission spectra of space objects with relativistic shocks, a kinetic description of electrons, positrons, and ions at microscales is needed. We model a plane relativistic shock propagating transverse to a regular magnetic field in the electron-ion plasmas with imposed turbulent fluctuations in the shock upstream. Namely we study the effect of the micro-scale plasma processes on macroscopic parameters of the mildly-relativistic shocks as the adiabatic index of the relativistic fluid in the shock downstream. The adiabatic index is a macroscopic parameter of the single-fluid MHD models commonly used for shock modeling at much longer hydrodynamical scales and it is especially important for the MHD modeling of the mildly-relativistic shocks.