%0 Journal Article
%T Interpenetrating plasma shells: near-equipartition magnetic field generation and non-thermal particle acceleration
%A L. O. Silva
%A R. A. Fonseca
%A J. Tonge
%A J. M. Dawson
%A W. B. Mori
%A M. V. Medvedev
%J Physics
%D 2003
%I arXiv
%R 10.1086/379156
%X 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..
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0307500v1