arXiv subjects

Harald Lesch

Publications and source records attributed to Harald Lesch.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2003

Particle acceleration in three-dimensional tearing configurations

In three-dimensional electromagnetic configurations that result from unstable resistive tearing modes particles can efficiently be accelerated to relativistic energies. To prove this resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations are used as input configurations for successive test particle simulations. The simulations show the capability of three-dimensional non-linearly evolved tearing modes to accelerate particles perpendicular to the plane of the reconnecting magnetic field components. The simulations differ considerably from analytical approaches by involving a realistic three-dimensional electric field with a non-homogenous component parallel to the current direction. The resulting particle spectra exhibit strong pitch-angle anisotropies. Typically, about 5-8 % of an initially Maxwellian distribution is accelerated to the maximum energy levels given by the macroscopic generalized electric potential structure. Results are shown for both, non-relativistic particle acceleration that is of interest, e.g., in the context of auroral arcs and solar flares, and relativistic particle energization that is relevant, e.g., in the context of active galactic nuclei.

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arXiv2002

Evolution and structure of magnetic fields in simulated galaxy clusters

We use cosmological magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to study the evolution of magnetic fields in galaxy clusters in two different cosmological models, a standard-CDM and a $Λ$-CDM model. We show that the magnetic field strength profiles closely follow the cluster density profiles outside a core region of radius $\sim200\kpc$. The magnetic field has a correlation length of order $50\kpc$ and reverses on scales of $\sim100\kpc$ along typical lines-of-sight. The power spectrum of the magnetic field can well be approximated by a steep power law with an exponent of $\sim-2.7$. The mean magnetic field in the cluster cores grows roughly exponentially with decreasing redshift, $B\sim10^{-2.5z} \muG$. Merger events have a pronounced effect on magnetic field evolution, which is strongly reflected in measurable quantities like the Faraday rotation. The field evolution in the two different cosmologies proceeds virtually identically. All our cluster models very well reproduce observed Faraday rotation measurements when starting with nG seed fields.

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arXiv2001

The Evolution of Magnetic Fields in Galaxy Clusters

Cosmological simulations of magnetic fields in galaxy clusters show that remarkable agreement between simulations and observations of Faraday rotation and radio haloes can be achieved assuming that seed fields of 10^{-9} G were present at redshifts 15-20. The structure of the seed field is irrelevant for the final intracluster field. On average, the field grows exponentially with decreasing cluster redshift, but merger events cause steep transient increases in the field strength. Typical field-reversal scales are of order 50 kpc/h. In most cases, the intracluster fields are dynamically unimportant. Assuming secondary electron models, the average structure of cluster radio haloes can naturally be reproduced.

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arXiv2001

Particle Acceleration in three dimensional Reconnection Regions: A New Test Particle Approach

Magnetic Reconnection is an efficient and fast acceleration mechanism by means of direct electric field acceleration parallel to the magnetic field. Thus, acceleration of particles in reconnection regions is a very important topic in plasma astrophysics. This paper shows that the conventional analytical models and numerical test particle investigations can be misleading concerning the energy distribution of the accelerated particles, since they oversimplify the electric field structure by the assumption that the field is homogeneous. These investigations of the acceleration of charged test particles are extended by considering three-dimensional field configurations characterized by localized field-aligned electric fields. Moreover, effects of radiative losses are discussed. The comparison between homogeneous and inhomogeneous electric field acceleration in reconnection regions shows dramatic differences concerning both, the maximum particle energy and the form of the energy distribution.

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arXiv2001

High Energy Hadronic Acceleration in Extragalactic Radio Jets

Within an electric circuit description of extragalactic jets temporal variations of the electric currents are associated with finite collisionless conductivities and consequently magnetic-field aligned electric fields $E_\parallel$. The maximum field strengths depend on the efficiency of the jet MHD generator $E_\perp$ and the local conversion to the $E_\parallel$ component. The hadronic jet constituents can efficiently be accelerated in such fields all along the jets. To estimate the maximum energy the accelerated jet hadrons can achieve we consider energy loss processes as photon-pion and pair production as well as synchrotron and inverse Compton radiation. It turns out that for the strongest $E_\parallel$ possible the Centaurus A jet is a most promising candidate for the source of the highest energy component of cosmic rays.

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arXiv1999

SPH simulations of magnetic fields in galaxy clusters (proceedings)

We perform cosmological, hydrodynamic simulations of magnetic fields in galaxy clusters. The computational code combines the special-purpose hardware Grape for calculating gravitational interaction, and smooth-particle hydrodynamics for the gas component. We employ the usual MHD equations for the evolution of the magnetic field in an ideally conducting plasma. As a first application, we focus on the question what kind of initial magnetic fields yield final field configurations within clusters which are compatible with Faraday-rotation measurements. Our main results can be summarised as follows: (i) Initial magnetic field strengths are amplified by approximately three orders of magnitude in cluster cores, one order of magnitude above the expectation from spherical collapse. (ii) Vastly different initial field configurations (homogeneous or chaotic) yield results that cannot significantly be distinguished. (iii) Micro-Gauss fields and Faraday-rotation observations are well reproduced in our simulations starting from initial magnetic fields of \~10^-9 G strength. Our results show that (i) shear flows in clusters are crucial for amplifying magnetic fields beyond simple compression, (ii) final field configurations in clusters are dominated by the cluster collapse rather than by the initial configuration, and (iii) initial magnetic fields of order 10^-9 G are required to match Faraday-rotation observations in real clusters.

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arXiv1999

SPH simulations of magnetic fields in galaxy clusters

We perform cosmological, hydrodynamic simulations of magnetic fields in galaxy clusters. The computational code combines the special-purpose hardware Grape for calculating gravitational interaction, and smooth-particle hydrodynamics for the gas component. We employ the usual MHD equations for the evolution of the magnetic field in an ideally conducting plasma. As a first application, we focus on the question what kind of initial magnetic fields yield final field configurations within clusters which are compatible with Faraday-rotation measurements. Our main results can be summarised as follows: (i) Initial magnetic field strengths are amplified by approximately three orders of magnitude in cluster cores, one order of magnitude above the expectation from spherical collapse. (ii) Vastly different initial field configurations (homogeneous or chaotic) yield results that cannot significantly be distinguished. (iii) Micro-Gauss fields and Faraday-rotation observations are well reproduced in our simulations starting from initial magnetic fields of \~ 10^-9 G strength at redshift 15. Our results show that (i) shear flows in clusters are crucial for amplifying magnetic fields beyond simple compression, (ii) final field configurations in clusters are dominated by the cluster collapse rather than by the initial configuration, and (iii) initial magnetic fields of order 10^-9 G are required to match Faraday-rotation observations in real clusters.

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arXiv1999

A transition from linear to circular polarization in pulsar radio emission

At present three pulsars are known which clearly show a strongly increasing degree of circular polarization with frequency. As this is accompanied by a smooth decrease of linear polarization, we investigate, if this observation can be explained through a propagation mode transition from linear to circular polarization. Using a previously published model we find that the rate of change of the polarization types with frequency is well consistent with the theory. The small number of only three objects does of course not allow to draw a general conclusion for the whole sample of pulsars. However we show that the very unusual behavior of these three objects can be well explained with this model and we discuss, why only so few such objects are presently known.

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arXiv1998

On Beaming due to coherent inverse Compton scattering

We calculate the beaming of coherent emission by means of geometrical optics. When spherical elementary waves are phase-coupled in that way that constructive interference occurs along one axis, the intensity is lower for off-axis viewing angles. The spatial angle of constructive interference shrinks to a fraction of $4π$ when the length scale of the emission region is larger than the wavelength of the radiation. This leads to an amplification of the received radiation in addition to the relativistic beaming caused by the relativistic radial outflow which is thought to be important for the radio emission of pulsars. The effect will be calculated by numerical methods and can be approximated by a simple analytic expression.

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arXiv1998

On Pair Production in the Crab Pulsar

We consider the widespread assumption that coherent pulsar radio emission is based on extended pair production leading to plasma densities highly exceeding the Goldreich-Julian density. We show as an example that the observed low frequency (160 MHz) emission of the Crab pulsar is incompatible to the model of extended pair production. Our results rule out significant pair production if a plasma process is responsible for coherence and the radio emission originates from inside the light cylinder.

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arXiv1998

Natural Polarization Modes in Pulsar Magnetospheres

We present a comprehensive investigation of the radio polarization properties within the theory of natural electromagnetic wave modes in pulsar magnetospheres. Taking into account the curvature of the field lines, aberration effects and magnetic sweep-back we use the relativistic dielectric tensor in the low-density cold plasma approximation and derive the following polarization characteristics, which are in full agreement with the observational findings. Specifically, we demonstrate that 1. The degree of linear polarization decreases with increasing frequency. 2. The degree of circular polarization increases with increasing frequency. 3. At high frequencies (> a few GHz) the degree of linear polarization is correlated to the spin down luminosity Edot. 4. At high frequencies long-period pulsars exhibit weaker linear polarization than their short-period counterparts. 5. The difference between the refractive indices of the two natural wave modes decreases with increasing frequency which possibly results into a depolarization via superposition.

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arXiv1994

Protogalactic evolution and magnetic fields

We show that the relatively strong magnetic fields ($\ge 1 μ$G) in high redshift objects can be explained by the combined action of an evolving protogalactic fluctuation and electrodynamic processes providing the magnetic seed fields. Three different seed field mechanisms are reviewed and incorporated into a spherical "top-hat" model and tidal torque theory for the fate of a forming galaxy in an expanding universe. Very weak fields $10^{-19} \sim 10^{-23}$G created in an expanding over-dense region are strongly enhanced due to the dissipative disk formation by a factor $\sim 10^4$, and subsequently amplified by strong non-axisymmetric flow by a factor $\sim 10^{6-10}$, depending on the cosmological parameters and the epoch of galaxy formation. The resulting field strength at $z \sim 0.395$ can be of the order of a few $μ$G and be close to this value at $z \sim 2$.

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arXiv1994

The radio spectrum of Sgr A*

We discuss the radio spectrum of Sgr A* \index{Sgr A*, radio spectrum} in the frequency range between $\approx 1\,{\rm GHz}$ and $\approx 1\,000\,{\rm GHz}$, show that it can be explained by optically thin synchrotron radiation \index{Sgr A*, synchrotron radiation, optically thin} of relativistic electrons, and point toward a possible correlation between the spectrum of Sgr A* and larger-scale ($\la 50\,{\rm pc}$) radio emission from the Galactic Center \index{Galactic Center} region.

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arXiv1994

The spectrum of Sgr A* and its variability

We demonstrate that there is only one physical process required to explain the spectrum and the variability of the radio source at the dynamical center of our Galaxy, Sgr A*, in the frequency range from $\approx$1 to $\approx$1000 GHz, namely optically thin synchrotron radiation that is emitted from a population of relativistic electrons. We attribute the observed variability to variable energy input from an accretion disk around Sgr A* into the acceleration of the electrons.

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arXiv1993

Our Galactic Center: A laboratory for the feeding of AGNs?

We demonstrate that our Galactic Center, despite little evidence for the presence of a currently active nucleus, provides insight into the feeding of AGN: The observed velocity field of molecular clouds can be interpreted as tracing out the spiralling inwards of gas in a large accretion flow towards the Galactic Center (Linden et al. 1993, Biermann et al. 1993) in the radial distance range from a few parsec to a few hundred pc. The required effective viscosity corresponds well to the observed turbulent velocities and characteristic length scales. The implied mass influx provides indeed all the material needed to maintain the presently observed star formation rate at distances closer than about $100$ pc. We argue that the energy input from supernova explosions due to the high rate of star formation can feed the turbulence of the interstellar medium. This then keeps the effective viscosity high as required to feed the star formation. We suggest that this process leads to limit cycles in star formation, and as a consequence also to limit cycles in the feeding of any activity at the very center.

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