Interpenetrating Plasma Shells: Near-Equipartition Magnetic Field Generation and Nonthermal Particle Acceleration

Abstract

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 $10^8$ particles) parallel code OSIRIS has been used. Our simulations show: (i) the generation of long-lived near-equipartition (electro)magnetic fields, (ii) non-thermal particle acceleration, and (iii) short-scale to long-scale magnetic field evolution, in the collision region. Our results provide new insights into the magnetic field generation and particle acceleration in relativistic and sub-relativistic colliding streams of particles, which are present in gamma-ray bursters, supernova remnants, relativistic jets, pulsar winds, etc..