Abstract

Invited Talk - Splinter NonThermalAccel   (MW-1250)

The Kinetic Heart of Cosmic Accelerators

Artem Bohdan
Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

Collisionless shocks are ubiquitous throughout the universe, serving as the primary engines for the acceleration of cosmic rays. While the macroscopic properties of these shocks are well-studied, the underlying kinetic microphysics, particularly the heating and acceleration of electrons, remains a frontier of plasma astrophysics. This talk explores the kinetic nature of collisionless shocks using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. We focus on kinetic plasma processes in mildly relativistic shocks, exploring how plasma instabilities facilitate the transition from thermal to non-thermal energy distributions, and how these processes depend on the plasma magnetization, the shock Lorentz factor and the upstream magnetic field obliquity. By applying these results to the environment of AGN jets, we establish a direct link between kinetic-scale plasma physics and the observed high-energy radiation from blazars.