Project Details
Projekt
Generation and amplification of cosmic magnetic fields by kinetic plasma instabilities
Applicant
Professor Dr. Reinhard Schlickeiser
Subject Area
Astrophysics and Astronomy
Term
from 2008 to 2015
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 60352348
The generation and amplification of weakly amplified and weakly propagating cosmic magnetic fields by kinetic instabilities of anisotropic particle distributions in fully and partially ionised plasmas is relevant for many cosmic sources including cosmological seed magnetic fields and powerful outflow sources such as solar flares, stellar and galactic winds, pulsar wind nebula, supernova shock waves and relativistic jets of active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray burst sources. The existence of magnetic fields is a mandatory requirement for the onset of nonthermal phenomena in such sources, that are well-established sources of high-energy photon radiation. Because in an appropriate frame of reference any cosmic outflow source can be modeled as counterstreaming plasmas, the magnetisation of such sources occurs by Weibel-type (in unmagnetised plasmas) and filamentation (in weakly magnetised plasmas) instabilities that generate aperiodic fluctuations in space which initially purely grow with time. Our investigations concentrate on the time evolution of such fluctuations, their saturation level, the influence of finite spatial extents of anisotropic plasmas, the role of associated transverse electric field fluctuations, and the calculation of scattering lengths and energy diffusion rates of plasma particles and energetic charged test particles.
DFG Programme
Research Units
