arXiv subjects

Hayk Hakobyan

Publications and source records attributed to Hayk Hakobyan.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Entity -- Hardware-agnostic Particle-in-Cell Code for Plasma Astrophysics. III: Higher-order shape functions & generalized field stencils

Modern particle-in-cell (PIC) codes have become an integral tool in plasma astrophysics. As most plasma phenomena grow from initially small instabilities, it is important to ensure PIC codes can suppress noise and ensure that any growing instability is indeed physical. Therefore, we introduce our efforts to implement higher-order methods for the current deposit and field interpolation as well as generalized field stencils for the field solver in the PIC code \texttt{Entity}. Our updated current deposit scheme allows for up to $11^\mathrm{th}$-order accurate interpolation, while the generalized stencils for the field solver can be tuned to suppress numerical dispersion. We perform extensive tests to ensure high accuracy of the implemented schemes for charge conservation, stabilization against numerical heating, improved energy conservation, and suppression of numerical Cherenkov effects. To supply a benchmark on performance impact, we demonstrate the scaling of the higher-order current deposit and discuss the possible performance balance between higher-order interpolation, numerical resolution, and the inclusion of additional current filtering.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

Electromagnetic Precursors to Binary Neutron Star Mergers: Kinetic Simulations of Magnetospheric Flaring

We present the first 3D global kinetic simulations of the interacting magnetospheres of pre-merger binary neutron stars. The stars, whose magnetic moments are anti-aligned, twist the field lines connecting them, leading to periodic eruptions. Each eruption consists of an expanding magnetic flux tube with a reconnecting current sheet trailing behind it, topologically analogous to coronal mass ejections. We predict two novel classes of electromagnetic precursor signals powered by the efficient dissipation of magnetic energy in these periodically forming trailing current sheets. First, particles accelerated in the sheets produce nonthermal gamma-ray signals peaking at $\sim16\,\mathrm{MeV}$, which escape minutes to seconds before merger while the sheets are still optically thin to pair production, with modest characteristic luminosities of $L_\mathrm{obs}\gtrsim 10^{42}\,\mathrm{erg/s}$, detectable only for nearby mergers. Second, merging plasmoids in the sheets could produce fast radio burst-like transients in the final seconds before merger, with characteristic luminosities $L_\mathrm{radio}\sim 10^{38-40}\,\mathrm{erg/s}$. These coherent radio precursors would be detectable by upcoming instruments, either in untargeted surveys by wide-field instruments such as CHORD, or through targeted follow-up of gravitational-wave early-warning alerts with instruments such as DSA or SKA-mid.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Reconnection-driven Flares in M87*: Proton-Synchrotron-powered GeV Emission

Magnetic reconnection in current layers that form intermittently in radiatively inefficient accretion flows onto black holes is a promising mechanism for particle acceleration and high-energy emission. It has been recently proposed that such layers, arising during flux eruption events, can power the rapid TeV flares observed from the core of M87. In this scenario, inverse Compton scattering of soft radiation from the accretion flow by energetic electron-positron pairs produced near the reconnection layer was suggested as the primary emission mechanism. However, detailed calculations show that radiation from pairs alone cannot account for the GeV emission detected by the Fermi observatory. In this work, we combine analytic estimates with 3D radiative particle-in-cell simulations of pair-proton plasmas to show that the GeV emission can be naturally explained by synchrotron radiation from protons accelerated in the current sheet. Although the exact proton content of the layer is uncertain, our model remains robust across a broad range of proton-to-pair number density ratios. While protons are subdominant in number compared to pairs, our simulations demonstrate that they can be accelerated more efficiently, leading to a self-regulated steady state in which protons dominate the energy budget. Ultimately, proton synchrotron emission accounts for approximately 5%-20% of the total dissipation power. The majority is radiated as MeV photons via pair synchrotron emission, with a smaller fraction emitted as TeV photons through inverse Compton scattering.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Entity -- Hardware-agnostic Particle-in-Cell Code for Plasma Astrophysics. I: Curvilinear Special Relativistic Module

Entity is a new-generation, fully open-source particle-in-cell (PIC) code developed to overcome key limitations in astrophysical plasma modeling, particularly the extreme separation of scales and the performance challenges associated with evolving, GPU-centric computing infrastructures. It achieves hardware-agnostic performance portability across various GPU and CPU architectures using the Kokkos library. Crucially, Entity maintains a high standard for usability, clarity, and customizability, offering a robust and easy-to-use framework for developing new algorithms and grid geometries, which allows extensive control without requiring edits to the core source code. This paper details the core general-coordinate special-relativistic module. Entity is the first PIC code designed to solve the Vlasov-Maxwell system in general coordinates, enabling a coordinate-agnostic framework that provides the foundational structure for straightforward extension to arbitrary coordinate geometries. The core methodology achieves numerical stability by solving particle equations of motion in the global orthonormal Cartesian basis, despite using generalized coordinates like Cartesian, axisymmetric spherical, and quasi-spherical grids. Charge conservation is ensured via a specialized current deposition technique using conformal currents. The code exhibits robust scalability and performance portability on major GPU platforms (AMD MI250X, NVIDIA A100, and Intel Max Series), with the 3D particle pusher and the current deposition operating efficiently at about 2 nanoseconds per particle per timestep. Functionality is validated through a comprehensive suite of standard Cartesian plasma tests and the accurate modeling of relativistic magnetospheres in curvilinear axisymmetric geometries.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

$\mathtt{Entity}$ -- Hardware-agnostic Particle-in-Cell Code for Plasma Astrophysics. II: General Relativistic Module

Black hole environments often host plasmas that are fully collisionless or contain intrinsically collisionless regions, including relativistic jets and coronae where particle energization is ubiquitous. Capturing the physics of these systems requires numerical methods capable of modeling relativistic, magnetized, collisionless plasmas in strong gravitational fields. In this work, we introduce the general-relativistic module for the Entity -- the first open-source, coordinate-agnostic performance-portable particle-in-cell code. The code enables fast axisymmetric simulations of collisionless plasmas around black holes on any modern high-performance computing architecture (both GPUs and CPUs).

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Plasma Instabilities Dominate Radioactive Transients Magnetic Fields: The self-confinement of leptons in Type Ia and Core-Collapse Supernovae, and Kilonovae

The light curves of radioactive transients, such as supernovae and kilonovae, are powered by the decay of radioisotopes, which release high-energy leptons through $β^+$ and $β^-$ decays. These leptons deposit energy into the expanding ejecta. As the ejecta density decreases during expansion, the plasma becomes collisionless, with particle motion governed by electromagnetic forces. In such environments, strong or turbulent magnetic fields are thought to confine particles, though the origin of these fields and the confinement mechanism have remained unclear. Using fully kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, we demonstrate that plasma instabilities can naturally confine high-energy leptons. These leptons generate magnetic fields through plasma streaming instabilities, even in the absence of pre-existing fields. The self-generated magnetic fields slow lepton diffusion, enabling confinement and transferring energy to thermal electrons and ions. Our results naturally explain the positron trapping inferred from late-time observations of thermonuclear and core-collapse supernovae. Furthermore, they suggest potential implications for electron dynamics in the ejecta of kilonovae. We also estimate synchrotron radio luminosities from positrons for Type Ia supernovae and find that such emission could only be detectable with next-generation radio observatories from a Galactic or local-group supernova in an environment without any circumstellar material.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Kinetic simulations of the Kruskal-Schwarzchild instability in accelerating striped outflows I: Dynamics and energy dissipation

Astrophysical relativistic outflows are launched as Poynting-flux-dominated, yet the mechanism governing efficient magnetic dissipation, which powers the observed emission, is still poorly understood. We study magnetic energy dissipation in relativistic "striped" jets, which host current sheets separating magnetically dominated regions with opposite field polarity. The effective gravity force $g$ in the rest frame of accelerating jets drives the Kruskal-Schwarzschild instability (KSI), a magnetic analogue of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability. By means of 2D and 3D particle-in-cell simulations, we study the linear and non-linear evolution of the KSI. The linear stage is well described by linear stability analysis. The non-linear stages of the KSI generate thin (skin-depth-thick) current layers, with length comparable to the dominant KSI wavelength. There, the relativistic drift-kink mode and the tearing mode drive efficient magnetic dissipation. The dissipation rate can be cast as an increase in the effective width $Δ_{\rm eff}$ of the dissipative region, which follows $dΔ_{\rm eff}/dt\simeq 0.05 \sqrt{Δ_{\rm eff}\,g}$. Our results have important implications for the location of the dissipation region in gamma-ray burst and AGN jets.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

A New Particle Pusher with Hadronic Interactions for Modeling Multimessenger Emission from Compact Objects

We propose novel numerical schemes based on the Boris method in curved spacetime, incorporating both hadronic and radiative interactions for the first time. Once the proton has lost significant energy due to radiative and hadronic losses, and its gyroradius has decreased below typical scales on which the electromagnetic field varies, we apply a guiding center approximation (GCA). We fundamentally simulate collision processes either with a Monte-Carlo method or, where applicable, as a continuous energy loss, contingent on the local optical depth. To test our algorithm for the first time combining the effects of electromagnetic, gravitational, and radiation fields including hadronic interactions, we simulate highly relativistic protons traveling through various electromagnetic fields and proton backgrounds. We provide unit tests in various spatially dependent electromagnetic and gravitational fields and background photon and proton distributions, comparing the trajectory against analytic results. We propose that our method can be used to analyze hadronic interactions in black hole accretion disks, jets, and coronae to study the neutrino abundance from active galactic nuclei.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Spindown of Pulsars Interacting with Companion Winds: Impact of Magnetospheric Compression

The presence of a companion wind in neutron star binary systems can form a contact discontinuity well within the pulsar's light cylinder, effectively creating a waveguide that confines the pulsar's electromagnetic fields and significantly alters its spindown. We parametrize this confinement as the ratio between the equatorial position of the contact discontinuity (or standoff distance) $R_\mathrm{m}$ and the pulsar's light cylinder $R_\mathrm{LC}$. We quantify the pulsar spindown for relativistic wind envelopes with $R_\mathrm{m}/R_\mathrm{LC} = 1/3...1$ and varying inclination angles $χ$ between magnetic and rotation axes using particle-in-cell simulations. Our strongly confined models ($R_\mathrm{m}/R_\mathrm{LC} = 1/3$) identify two distinct limits. For $χ=0^\circ$, the spindown induced by the compressed pulsar magnetosphere is enhanced by approximately three times compared to an isolated pulsar due to an increased number of open magnetic field lines. Conversely, for $χ=90^\circ$, the compressed system spins down at less than $40\%$ of the rate of an isolated reference pulsar due to the mismatch between the pulsar wind stripe wavelength and the waveguide size. We directly apply our analysis to the 2.77-second period oblique rotator ($χ=60^\circ$) in the double pulsar system PSR J0737-3039. With the numerically derived spindown estimate, we constrain its surface magnetic field to $B_* \approx (7.3 \pm 0.2) \times 10^{11}$ G. We discuss the time modulation of its period derivative, the effects of compression on its braking index, and implications for the radio eclipse in PSR J0737-3039.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Letter of Intent: Open Charm at JLab with the sPHENIX MAPS tracker

We propose a physics program at JLab with CLAS12 focusing on open-charm measurements, aiming to complement and expand current studies of $J/ψ$ at (sub) threshold. This program will aid us in elucidating the $J/ψ$ production mechanisms, which is crucial for interpreting data in terms of gluon form factors and offer potential insights into the intrinsic charm hypothesis and cold-nuclear matter effects. We discuss the technical feasibility of integrating the sPHENIX monolithic-active-pixel sensor (MAPS) tracker, known as MVTX, with the CLAS12 detector. The sPHENIX MTVX would support an open-charm program by providing excellent secondary-vertex performance for tagging $D$ mesons. We study the kinematics of $γp \to \bar{D}^{0}Λ_{c}$ through phase-space simulations and estimate rates for the tagged quasi-photoproduction regime available with the CLAS12 forward tagger. While open-charm cross-sections at threshold remain uncertain, various predictions suggest that these measurements could be feasible when combined with conservative estimates of detector acceptance and luminosity. These preliminary estimates motivate detailed Geant detector simulations of signals and backgrounds, along with thorough technical assessments of operating conditions, to further explore the feasibility of these measurements in future dedicated CLAS12 experiments at JLab.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2024

Radiative Particle-in-Cell Simulations of Turbulent Comptonization in Magnetized Black-Hole Coronae

We report results from the first radiative particle-in-cell simulations of strong Alfvenic turbulence in plasmas of moderate optical depth. The simulations are performed in a local 3D periodic box and self-consistently follow the evolution of radiation as it interacts with a turbulent electron-positron plasma via Compton scattering. We focus on the conditions expected in magnetized coronae of accreting black holes and obtain an emission spectrum consistent with the observed hard state of Cyg X-1. Most of the turbulence power is transferred directly to the photons via bulk Comptonization, shaping the peak of the emission around 100 keV. The rest is released into nonthermal particles, which generate the MeV spectral tail. The method presented here shows promising potential for ab initio modeling of various astrophysical sources and opens a window into a new regime of kinetic plasma turbulence.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

High-Energy Radiation and Ion Acceleration in Three-dimensional Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection with Strong Synchrotron Cooling

We present the results of 3D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations that explore relativistic magnetic reconnection in pair plasma with strong synchrotron cooling and a small mass fraction of non-radiating ions. Our results demonstrate that the structure of the current sheet is highly sensitive to the dynamic efficiency of radiative cooling. Specifically, stronger cooling leads to more significant compression of the plasma and magnetic field within the plasmoids. We demonstrate that ions can be efficiently accelerated to energies exceeding the plasma magnetization parameter, $\ggσ$, and form a hard power-law energy distribution, $f_i\propto γ^{-1}$. This conclusion implies a highly efficient proton acceleration in the magnetospheres of young pulsars. Conversely, the energies of pairs are limited to either $σ$ in the strong cooling regime or the radiation burnoff limit, $γ_{\rm syn}$, when cooling is weak. We find that the high-energy radiation from pairs above the synchrotron burnoff limit, $\varepsilon_c \approx 16$ MeV, is only efficiently produced in the strong cooling regime, $γ_{\rm syn} < σ$. In this regime, we find that the spectral cutoff scales as $\varepsilon_{\rm cut}\approx \varepsilon_c (σ/γ_{\rm syn})$, and the highest energy photons are beamed along the direction of the upstream magnetic field, consistent with the phenomenological models of gamma-ray emission from young pulsars. Furthermore, our results place constraints on the reconnection-driven models of gamma-ray flares in the Crab Nebula.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Magnetic energy dissipation and gamma-ray emission in energetic pulsars

Some of the most energetic pulsars exhibit rotation-modulated gamma-ray emission in the $0.1$ to $100$ GeV band. The luminosity of this emission is typically $0.1\text{-}10\%$ of the pulsar spin-down power (gamma-ray efficiency), implying that a significant fraction of the available electromagnetic energy is dissipated in the magnetosphere and reradiated as high-energy photons. To investigate this phenomenon we model a pulsar magnetosphere using 3D particle-in-cell simulations with strong synchrotron cooling. We particularly focus on the dynamics of the equatorial current sheet where magnetic reconnection and energy dissipation take place. Our simulations demonstrate that a fraction of the spin-down power dissipated in the magnetospheric current sheet is controlled by the rate of magnetic reconnection at microphysical plasma scales and only depends on the pulsar inclination angle. We demonstrate that the maximum energy and the distribution function of accelerated pairs is controlled by the available magnetic energy per particle near the current sheet, the magnetization parameter. The shape and the extent of the plasma distribution is imprinted in the observed synchrotron emission, in particular, in the peak and the cutoff of the observed spectrum. We study how the strength of synchrotron cooling affects the observed variety of spectral shapes. Our conclusions naturally explain why pulsars with higher spin-down power have wider spectral shapes and, as a result, lower gamma-ray efficiency.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Radiative reconnection-powered TeV flares from the black hole magnetosphere in M87

Active Galactic Nuclei in general, and the supermassive black hole in M87 in particular, show bright and rapid gamma-ray flares up to energies of 100 GeV and above. For M87, the flares show multiwavelength components, and the variability timescale is comparable to the dynamical time of the event horizon, suggesting that the emission may come from a compact region nearby the nucleus. However, the emission mechanism for these flares is not well understood. Recent high-resolution general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations show the occurrence of episodic magnetic reconnection events that can power flares nearby the black hole event horizon. In this work, we analyze the radiative properties of the reconnecting current layer under the extreme plasma conditions applicable to the black hole in M87 from the first principles. We show that abundant pair production is expected in the vicinity of the reconnection layer, to the extent that the produced secondary pair plasma dominates the reconnection dynamics. Using analytic estimates backed by two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations we demonstrate that in the presence of strong synchrotron cooling, reconnection can produce a hard power-law distribution of pair plasma imprinted in the outgoing synchrotron (up to a few tens of MeV) and the inverse-Compton signal (up to TeV). We produce synthetic radiation spectra from our simulations, which can be directly compared with the results of future multiwavelength observations of M87* flares.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Secondary Energization in Compressing Plasmoids during Magnetic Reconnection

Plasmoids -- magnetized quasi-circular structures formed self-consistently in reconnecting current sheets -- were previously considered to be the graveyards of energetic particles. In this paper, we demonstrate the important role of plasmoids in shaping the particle energy spectrum in relativistic reconnection (i.e., with upstream magnetization $σ_{\rm up} \gg 1$). Using two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations in pair plasmas with $σ_{\rm up}=10$ and $100$, we study a secondary particle energization process that takes place inside compressing plasmoids. We demonstrate that plasmoids grow in time, while their interiors compress, amplifying the internal magnetic field. The magnetic field felt by particles injected in an isolated plasmoid increases linearly with time, which leads to particle energization as a result of magnetic moment conservation. For particles injected with a power-law distribution function, this energization process acts in such a way that the shape of the injected power law is conserved, while producing an additional non-thermal tail $f(E)\propto E^{-3}$ at higher energies followed by an exponential cutoff. The cutoff energy, which increases with time as $E_{\rm cut}\propto\sqrt{t}$, can greatly exceed $σ_{\rm up} m_e c^2$. We analytically predict the secondary acceleration timescale and the shape of the emerging particle energy spectrum, which can be of major importance in certain astrophysical systems, such as blazar jets.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2018

Effects of synchrotron cooling and pair production on collisionless relativistic reconnection

High energy radiation from nonthermal particles accelerated in relativistic magnetic reconnection is thought to be important in many astrophysical systems, ranging from blazar jets and black hole accretion disk coronae to pulsars and magnetar flares. The presence of a substantial density of high energy photons ($>$MeV) in these systems can make two-photon pair production ($γγ\to e^-e^+$) an additional source of plasma particles and can affect the radiative properties of these objects. We present the results of novel particle-in-cell simulations that track both the radiated synchrotron photons and the created pairs, with which we study the evolution of a two-dimensional reconnecting current sheet in pair plasma. Synchrotron radiation from accelerated particles in the current sheet produces hot secondary pairs in the upstream which are later advected into the current sheet where they are reaccelerated and produce more photons. In the optically thin regime, when most of the radiation is leaving the upstream unaffected, this process is self-regulating and depends only on the background magnetic field and the optical depth of photons to pair production. The extra plasma loading also affects the properties of reconnection. We study how the inflow of the secondary plasma, with multiplicities up to several hundred, reduces the effective magnetization of the plasma, suppressing the acceleration and thus decreasing the high energy photon spectrum cutoff. This offers an explanation for the weak dependence of the observed gamma-ray cutoff in pulsars on the magnetic field at the light cylinder.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2018

NPF: mirror development in Chile

In the era of high-angular resolution astronomical instrumentation, where long and very long baseline interferometers (constituted by many, $\sim$ 20 or more, telescopes) are expected to work not only in the millimeter and submillimeter domain, but also at near and mid infrared wavelengths (experiments such as the Planet Formation Imager, PFI, see Monnier et al. 2018 for an update on its design); any promising strategy to alleviate the costs of the individual telescopes involved needs to be explored. In a recent collaboration between engineers, experimental physicists and astronomers in Valparaiso, Chile, we are gaining expertise in the production of light carbon fiber polymer reinforced mirrors. The working principle consists in replicating a glass, or other substrate, mandrel surface with the mirrored adequate curvature, surface characteristics and general shape. Once the carbon fiber base has hardened, previous studies have shown that it can be coated (aluminum) using standard coating processes/techniques designed for glass-based mirrors. The resulting surface quality is highly dependent on the temperature and humidity control among other variables. Current efforts are focused on improving the smoothness of the resulting surfaces to meet near/mid infrared specifications, overcoming, among others, possible deteriorations derived from the replication process. In a second step, at the validation and quality control stage, the mirrors are characterized using simple/traditional tools like spherometers (down to micron precision), but also an optical bench with a Shack-Hartman wavefront sensor. This research line is developed in parallel with a more classical glass-based approach, and in both cases we are prototyping at the small scale of few tens of cms. We here present our progress on these two approaches.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2018

Construction and Performance of the Barrel Electromagnetic Calorimeter for the GlueX Experiment

The barrel calorimeter is part of the new spectrometer installed in Hall D at Jefferson Lab for the GlueX experiment. The calorimeter was installed in 2013, commissioned in 2014 and has been operating routinely since early 2015. The detector configuration, associated Monte Carlo simulations, calibration and operational performance are described herein. The calorimeter records the time and energy deposited by charged and neutral particles created by a multi-GeV photon beam. It is constructed as a lead and scintillating-fiber calorimeter and read out with 3840 large-area silicon photomultiplier arrays. Particles impinge on the detector over a wide range of angles, from normal incidence at 90 degrees down to 11.5 degrees, which defines a geometry that is fairly unique among calorimeters. The response of the calorimeter has been measured during a running experiment and performs as expected for electromagnetic showers below 2.5 GeV. We characterize the performance of the BCAL using the energy resolution integrated over typical angular distributions for $π^0$ and $η$ production of $σ_E/E$=5.2\%/$\sqrt{E(\rm{GeV})} \oplus$ 3.6\% and a timing resolution of $σ$\,=\,150\,ps at 1\,GeV.

physics.ins-det↗