| Title: | A new time-dependent finite-difference method for relativistic shock acceleration
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| Authors: | S. Delaney*, P. Dempsey, P. Duffy, T. P. Downes, 2012 |
| Abstract: | We present a new approach to calculate the particle distribution function about relativistic shocks including synchrotron losses using the method of lines with an explicit finite-difference scheme. A steady, continuous, one-dimensional plasma flow is considered to model thick (modified) shocks, leading to a calculation in three dimensions plus time, the former three being momentum, pitch angle and position. The method accurately reproduces the expected power-law behaviour in momentum at the shock for upstream flow speeds ranging from 0.1c to 0.995c (Γ ∈ (1, 10]). It also reproduces approximate analytical results for the synchrotron cutoff shape for a non-relativistic shock, demonstrating that the loss process is accurately represented. The algorithm has been implemented as a hybrid OpenMP–MPI parallel algorithm to make efficient use of SMP cluster architectures and scales well up to many hundreds of CPUs. |
| ICHEC Project: | HPC methods for particle acceleration at relativistic shocks |
| Publication: | MNRAS, Volume 420, Issue 4, pages 3360–3367, March 2012 |
| URL: | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.20257.x/abstract;jsessionid=F5F9E0755DF14F624E9C85A9F0F5420B.d02t04?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage= |
| Keywords: | acceleration of particles;relativistic processes;shock waves;methods: numerical |
| Status: | Published |
