Modeling Pulsar Gamma-Ray Light Curves Using Realistic Magnetospheric Geometries (2009)
Bai, Xue-Ning, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
Gamma-ray emission from pulsars is thought to arise from accelerating regions in pulsar's outer magnetosphere. The shape of the light curves is thus sensitive to the details of the magnetic geometry...
Uncertainties of Modeling Gamma-Ray Pulsar Light Curves with Vacuum Dipole Magnetic Field (2009)
Bai, Xue-Ning, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
Current models of pulsar gamma-ray emission use the magnetic field of a rotating dipole in vacuum as a first approximation to the shape of plasma-filled pulsar magnetosphere. In this paper we revisit...
Modeling of Gamma-Ray Pulsar Light Curves with Force-Free Magnetic Field (2009)
Bai, Xue-Ning, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
(Abridged) Gamma-ray emission from pulsars has long been modeled using a vacuum dipole field. This approximation ignores changes in the field structure caused by the magnetospheric plasma and strong...
Synthetic Spectra from PIC Simulations of Relativistic Collisionless Shocks (2009)
Sironi, Lorenzo, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
We extract synthetic photon spectra from first-principles particle-in-cell simulations of relativistic shocks propagating in unmagnetized pair plasmas. The two basic ingredients for the radiation,...
Magnetohydrodynamic Shallow Water Waves: Linear Analysis (2009)
Heng, Kevin, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
We present a linear analysis of inviscid, incompressible, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) shallow water systems. In spherical geometry, a generic property of such systems is the existence of five wave...
Signatures of a Thermal Component in Shock-Accelerated Electrons in GRBs (2009)
Giannios, Dimitrios, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
Recent particle-in-cell simulations suggest that a large fraction of the energy dissipated in a relativistic shock is deposited into a thermal distribution of electrons that is connected to the...
Extreme Astrophysics with Neutron Stars (2009)
Lai, Dong, Van Kerkwijk, Marten, Arons, Jon, Beloborodov, Andrei, Brown, Edward, Cordes, James, ...
We highlight recent theoretical and observational progress in several areas of neutron star astrophysics, and discuss the prospect for advances in the next decade.
Sironi, Lorenzo, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
We investigate shock structure and particle acceleration in relativistic magnetized collisionless pair shocks by means of 2.5D and 3D particle-in-cell simulations. We explore a range of inclination...
Non-linear Study of Bell's Cosmic Ray Current-driven Instability (2008)
Riquelme, Mario A., Spitkovsky, Anatoly
The cosmic ray current-driven (CRCD) instability, predicted by Bell (2004), consists of non-resonant, growing plasma waves driven by the electric current of cosmic rays (CRs) that stream along the...
Medvedev, Mikhail V., Spitkovsky, Anatoly
We address the question of whether numerical particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations and laboratory laser-plasma experiments can (or will be able to, in the near future) model realistic gamma-ray burst...
Particle acceleration in relativistic collisionless shocks: Fermi process at last? (2008)
We present evidence that relativistic shocks propagating in unmagnetized plasmas can self-consistently accelerate particles. We use long-term two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to study the...
Magnetic field evolution in relativistic unmagnetized collisionless shocks (2008)
Keshet, Uri, Katz, Boaz, Spitkovsky, Anatoly, Waxman, Eli
We study relativistic unmagnetized collisionless shocks using unprecedentedly large particle-in-cell simulations of two-dimensional pair plasma. High energy particles accelerated by the shock are...
Long Term Evolution of Magnetic Turbulence in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks (2008)
Chang, Philip, Spitkovsky, Anatoly, Arons, Jonathan
We study the long term evolution of magnetic fields generated by an initially unmagnetized collisionless relativistic $e^+e^-$ shock. Our 2D particle-in-cell numerical simulations show that...
On the structure of relativistic collisionless shocks in electron-ion plasmas (2007)
Relativistic collisionless shocks in electron-ion plasma are thought to occur in the afterglow phase of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), and in other environments where relativistic flows interact with the...
Simulations of relativistic collisionless shocks: shock structure and particle acceleration (2006)
We discuss 3D simulations of relativistic collisionless shocks in electron-positron pair plasmas using the particle-in-cell (PIC) method. The shock structure is mainly controlled by the shock's...
Pulsar electrodynamics: a time-dependent view (2006)
Pulsar spindown forms a reliable yet enigmatic prototype for the energy loss processes in many astrophysical objects including accretion disks and back holes. In this paper we review the physics of...
Time-dependent force-free pulsar magnetospheres: axisymmetric and oblique rotators (2006)
Magnetospheres of many astrophysical objects can be accurately described by the low-inertia (or "force-free") limit of MHD. We present a new numerical method for solution of equations of force-free...
Revised Pulsar Spindown (2005)
Contopoulos, Ioannis, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
We address the issue of electromagnetic pulsar spindown by combining our experience from the two limiting idealized cases which have been studied in great extent in the past: that of an aligned...
Milosavljevic, Milos, Nakar, Ehud, Spitkovsky, Anatoly
It is generally accepted that magnetic fields generated in the nonlinear development of the transverse Weibel instability provide effective collisionality in unmagnetized collisionless shocks....
Orbital Modulation of the Apparent Dispersion Measure Towards PSR J0737-3039A (2004)
Ransom, Scott M., Backer, Donald C., Demorest, Paul, Kaspi, Victoria M., Ramachandran, R., Arons, Jonathan, ...
The paper was withdrawn because the effect is due to the data reduction methodology. See the text file for details.
Probing Relativistic Winds: The case of PSRJ07370-3039 A & B (2004)
Arons, Jonathan, Backer, D. C., Spitkovsky, Anatoly, Kaspi, V. M.
We propose synchrotron absorption in a magnetosheath forming a cocoon around the magnetosphere of pulsar B to be the origin of the eclipse phenomena seen in the recently discovered double pulsar...
Spitkovsky, Anatoly, Arons, Jonathan
We describe results from time-dependent numerical modeling of the collisionless reverse shock terminating the pulsar wind in the Crab Nebula. We treat the upstream relativistic wind as composed of...
Electrodynamics of pulsar magnetospheres (2003)
I review the theoretical understanding of the global structure of pulsar magnetospheres concentrating on recent progress in force-free electrodynamics and first-principles simulations of...
Simulations of pulsar wind formation (2002)
Spitkovsky, Anatoly, Arons, Jonathan
We present initial results of the first self-consistent numerical model of the outer magnetosphere of a pulsar. By using the relativistic ``particle-in-cell'' method with special boundary conditions...
Pulsar winds and other burning questions of astrophysics / (2002)
Thesis (Ph.D. in Physics)--University of California, Berkeley, Fall 2002.
Spitkovsky, Anatoly, Levin, Yuri, Ushomirsky, Greg
We analyze the global hydrodynamic flow in the ocean of an accreting, rapidly rotating, non-magnetic neutron star in an LMXB during a type I X-ray burst. Our analysis takes into account the rapid...
Longitudinal Laser Shaping in Laser Wakefield Accelerators (2000)
Spitkovsky, Anatoly, Chen, Pisin
We study the energetics of wake excitation during the laser-plasma interaction in application to laser wakefield accelerators. We find that both the wake amplitude and the accelerating efficiency...
Laser Shaping and Optimization of the Laser-Plasma Interaction (2000)
Spitkovsky, Anatoly, Chen, Pisin
The physics of energy transfer between the laser and the plasma in laser wakefield accelerators is studied. We find that wake excitation by arbitrary laser shapes can be parameterized using the total...