New Insights into Classical Novae Chomiuk, Laura; Metzger, Brian D; Shen, Ken J
Annual review of astronomy and astrophysics,
01/2021, Letnik:
59, Številka:
1
Journal Article
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We survey our understanding of classical novae-nonterminal, thermonuclear eruptions on the surfaces of white dwarfs in binary systems. The recent and unexpected discovery of GeV gamma rays from ...Galactic novae has highlighted the complexity of novae and their value as laboratories for studying shocks and particle acceleration. We review half a century of nova literature through this new lens, and conclude the following:
The basics of the thermonuclear runaway theory of novae are confirmed by observations. The white dwarf sustains surface nuclear burning for some time after runaway, and until recently, it was commonly believed that radiation from this nuclear burning solely determines the nova's bolometric luminosity.
The processes by which novae eject material from the binary system remain poorly understood. Mass loss from novae is complex (sometimes fluctuating in rate, velocity, and morphology) and often prolonged in time over weeks, months, or years.
The complexity of the mass ejection leads to gamma-ray-producing shocks internal to the nova ejecta. When gamma rays are detected (around optical maximum), the shocks are deeply embedded and the surrounding gas is very dense.
Observations of correlated optical and gamma-ray light curves confirm that the shocks are radiative and contribute significantly to the bolometric luminosity of novae. Novae are therefore the closest and most common interaction-powered transients.
The relaxation of field-line tension during magnetic reconnection gives rise to a universal Fermi acceleration process involving the curvature drift of particles. However, the efficiency of this ...mechanism is limited by the trapping of energetic particles within flux ropes. Using 3D fully kinetic simulations, we demonstrate that the flux-rope kink instability leads to strong field-line chaos in weak-guide-field regimes where the Fermi mechanism is most efficient, thus allowing particles to transport out of flux ropes and undergo further acceleration. As a consequence, both ions and electrons develop clear power-law energy spectra that contain a significant fraction of the released energy. The low-energy bounds are determined by the injection physics, while the high-energy cutoffs are limited only by the system size. These results have strong relevance to observations of nonthermal particle acceleration in space and astrophysics.
While observations have suggested that power-law electron energy spectra are a common outcome of strong energy release during magnetic reconnection, e.g., in solar flares, kinetic simulations have ...not been able to provide definite evidence of power-laws in energy spectra of nonrelativistic reconnection. By means of 3D large-scale fully kinetic simulations, we study the formation of power-law electron energy spectra in nonrelativistic low-β reconnection. We find that both the global spectrum integrated over the entire domain and local spectra within individual regions of the reconnection layer have power-law tails with a spectral index p ∼ 4 in the 3D simulation, which persist throughout the nonlinear reconnection phase until saturation. In contrast, the spectrum in the 2D simulation rapidly evolves and quickly becomes soft. We show that 3D effects such as self-generated turbulence and chaotic magnetic field lines enable the transport of high-energy electrons across the reconnection layer and allow them to access several main acceleration regions. This leads to a sustained and nearly constant acceleration rate for electrons at different energies. We construct a model that explains the observed power-law spectral index in terms of the dynamical balance between particle acceleration and escape from main acceleration regions, which are defined based upon a threshold for the curvature drift acceleration term. This result could be important for explaining the formation of power-law energy spectrum in solar flares.
Abstract Collisionless shock waves, ubiquitous in the Universe, are crucial for particle acceleration in various astrophysical systems. Currently, the heliosphere is the only natural environment ...available for their in situ study. In this work, we showcase the collective acceleration of electrons and ions by one of the fastest in situ shocks ever recorded, observed by the pioneering Parker Solar Probe at only 34.5 million km from the Sun. Our analysis of this unprecedented, near-parallel shock shows electron acceleration up to 6 MeV amidst intense multiscale electromagnetic wave emissions. We also present evidence of a variable shock structure capable of injecting and accelerating ions from the solar wind to high energies through a self-consistent process. The exceptional capability of the probe’s instruments to measure electromagnetic fields in a shock traveling at 1% the speed of light has enabled us, for the first time, to confirm that the structure of a strong heliospheric shock aligns with theoretical models of strong shocks observed in astrophysical environments. This alignment offers viable avenues for understanding astrophysical shock processes and the self-consistent acceleration of charged particles.
Relativistic magnetized jets from active galaxies are among the most powerful cosmic accelerators, but their particle acceleration mechanisms remain a mystery. We present a new acceleration mechanism ...associated with the development of the helical kink instability in relativistic jets, which leads to the efficient conversion of the jet's magnetic energy into nonthermal particles. Large-scale three-dimensional ab initio simulations reveal that the formation of highly tangled magnetic fields and a large-scale inductive electric field throughout the kink-unstable region promotes rapid energization of the particles. The energy distribution of the accelerated particles develops a well-defined power-law tail extending to the radiation-reaction limited energy in the case of leptons, and to the confinement energy of the jet in the case of ions. When applied to the conditions of well-studied bright knots in jets from active galaxies, this mechanism can account for the spectrum of synchrotron and inverse Compton radiating particles, and offers a viable means of accelerating ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays to 10^{20} eV.
We investigate spatial and temporal scales at which wave‐particle interaction of Alfvén waves occurs in Jupiter's magnetosphere. We consider electrons, protons, and oxygen ions and study the regions ...along magnetic flux tubes where the plasma is the densest, that is, the equatorial plasma sheet, and where the plasma is the most dilute, that is, above the ionosphere, where auroral particle acceleration is expected to occur. We find that within a dipole L‐shell of roughly 30, the electron inertial length scale in the auroral region is the dominating scale, suggesting that electron Landau damping of kinetic Alfvén waves can play an important role in converting field energy into auroral particle acceleration. This mechanism is consistent with the broadband bidirectional electron distributions frequently observed by Juno. Due to interchange‐driven mass transport in Jupiter's magnetosphere, its magnetosphere‐ionosphere coupling is expected to be mostly not in local force balance. This might be a key reason for the dominant role of Alfvénically driven stochastic acceleration compared to the less frequently occurring, locally forced‐balanced, and thus static mono‐energetic unidirectional acceleration. Outside of approximately L = 30, the ion gyroperiod is the dominating scale suggesting that ion cyclotron damping of heavy ions plays a major role in heating magnetospheric plasma. We also present properties of the dispersion relationship and the polarization relationships of kinetic Alfvén waves including the important effects from the relativistic correction due to the displacement current in Ampère's law.
Key Points
Kinetic Alfvén waves in Jupiter's magnetosphere generate broadband bidirectional auroral electron beams
In Jupiter's middle and outer magnetosphere, ion cyclotron damping causes ion heating in plasma sheet
Stochastic acceleration due to Alfvén waves can have its root cause in magnetosphere‐ionosphere coupling locally not in stress balance
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