Interpenetrating Plasma Shells: Near-Equipartition Magnetic Field Generation and Nonthermal Particle Acceleration
Interpenetrating Plasma Shells: Near-Equipartition Magnetic Field Generation and Nonthermal Particle Acceleration
We present the first three-dimensional fully kinetic electromagnetic relativistic "particle-in-cell" simulations of the collision of two interpenetrating plasma shells. The highly accurate plasma-kinetic particle-in-cell (with the total of 108 particles) parallel code OSIRIS has been used. Our simulations show (1) the generation of long-lived near-equipartition (electro)magnetic fields, (2) nonthermal particle …