Abstract
Diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) by relativistic shocks is thought to generate the dN/dE E -p spectra of charged particles in various astronomical relativistic flows. We show that for test particles in one dimension (1D), p -1 =1-[γ d (1+β d )]/[γ u (1+β u )], where β u (β d ) is the upstream (downstream) normalized velocity, and γ is the respective Lorentz factor. This analytically captures the main properties of relativistic DSA in higher dimensions, with no assumptions on the diffusion mechanism. Unlike 2D and 3D, here the spectrum is sensitive to the equation of state even in the ultra-relativistic limit, and (for a J{üttner-Synge equation of state) noticeably hardens with increasing 1<γ u <57, before logarithmically converging back to p(γ u )=2. The 1D spectrum is sensitive to drifts, but only in the downstream, and not in the ultra-relativistic limit.
Original language | American English |
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Article number | 025 |
Journal | Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics |
Volume | 2017 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 18 Oct 2017 |
Keywords
- cosmic ray theory
- particle acceleration
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Astronomy and Astrophysics