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1. A Kinetic Study of the Saturation of the Bell Instability

   https://doi.org/10.22323/1.395.0483  

   Zacharegkas, Georgios; Caprioli, Damiano; Haggerty, Colby; Gupta, Siddhartha (July 2021, 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2021))

   null (Ed.)

   The nonresonant cosmic ray instability, predicted by Bell (2004), is thought to play an important role in the acceleration and confinement of cosmic rays (CR) close to supernova remnants. Despite its importance, the exact mechanism responsible for the saturation of the instability has not been determined, and there is no first-principle prediction for the amplitude of the saturated magnetic field. Using a survey of self-consistent hybrid simulations (with kinetic ions and fluid electrons), we study the non-linear evolution of the Bell instability as a function of the parameters of the CR population. We find that saturation is achieved when the magnetic pressure in the amplified field is comparable to the initial CR momentum flux. 

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2. Modeling the Saturation of the Bell Instability Using Hybrid Simulations

   Zacharegkas, G.; Caprioli, D.; Haggerty, C. (January 2019, ICRC2019)

   The nonresonant cosmic ray instability, predicted by Bell (2004), is thought to play an important role in the acceleration and confinement of cosmic rays (CRs) close to supernova remnants. Despite its importance, the exact mechanism responsible for the saturation of the instability has not been determined, and there is no first-principle prediction for the amplitude of the saturated magnetic field. Using a survey of self-consistent kinetic hybrid simulations (with kinetic ions and fluid electrons), we study the saturation of the non-resonant streaming instability as a function of the parameters of both the thermal background plasma and the CR population. The strength of the saturated magnetic field has important implications for both CR acceleration in supernova remnants and CR diffusion in the Galaxy. 

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3. Hybrid Simulations of the Resonant and Non-Resonant Cosmic Ray Streaming Instability

   Haggerty, C.; Caprioli, D.; Zweibel, E. (July 2019, 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2019))

   Using hybrid simulations (kinetic ions--fluid electrons), we test the linear theory predictions of the cosmic ray (CR) streaming instability. We consider two types of CR distribution functions: a "hot" distribution where CRs are represented by a drifting power law in momentum and an anisotropic "beam" of monochromatic particles. Additionally, for each CR distribution we scan over different CR densities to transition from triggering the resonant to the non-resonant (Bell) streaming instability. We determine the growth rates of these instabilities in simulations by fitting an exponential curve during the linear stage, and we show that they agree well with the theoretical predictions as a function of wave number agree. We also examine the magnetic helicity as a function of time and wave number, finding a general good agreement with the predictions, as well as some unexpected non-linear features to the instability development. 

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4. Turbulent Cosmic Ray–Mediated Shocks in the Hot Ionized Interstellar Medium

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac6ddc  

   Wang, B.-B.; Zank, G. P.; Zhao, L.-L.; Adhikari, L. (June 2022, The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract The structure of shocks and turbulence are strongly modified during the acceleration of cosmic rays (CRs) at a shock wave. The pressure and the collisionless viscous stress decelerate the incoming thermal gas and thus modify the shock structure. A CR streaming instability ahead of the shock generates the turbulence on which CRs scatter. The turbulent magnetic field in turn determines the CR diffusion coefficient and further affects the CR energy spectrum and pressure distribution. The dissipation of turbulence contributes to heating the thermal gas. Within a multicomponent fluid framework, CRs and thermal gas are treated as fluids and are closely coupled to the turbulence. The system equations comprise the gas dynamic equations, the CR pressure evolution equation, and the turbulence transport equations, and we adopt typical parameters for the hot ionized interstellar medium. It is shown that the shock has no discontinuity but possesses a narrow but smooth transition. The self-generated turbulent magnetic field is much stronger than both the large-scale magnetic field and the preexisting turbulent magnetic field. The resulting CR diffusion coefficient is substantially suppressed and is more than three orders smaller near the shock than it is far upstream. The results are qualitatively consistent with certain observations. 

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5. A new buoyancy instability in galaxy clusters due to streaming cosmic rays

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1744  

   Kempski, Philipp; Quataert, Eliot; Squire, Jonathan (June 2023, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are believed to provide the energy that prevents runaway cooling of gas in the cores of galaxy clusters. However, how this energy is transported and thermalized throughout the Intracluster Medium (ICM) remains unclear. In recent work, we showed that streaming cosmic rays (CRs) destabilize sound waves in dilute ICM plasmas. Here, we show that CR streaming in the presence of gravity also destabilizes a pressure-balanced wave. We term this new instability the CR buoyancy instability (CRBI). In stark contrast to standard results without CRs, the pressure-balanced mode is highly compressible at short wavelengths due to CR streaming. Maximal growth rates are of order (pc/pg)β1/2ωff, where pc/pg is the ratio of CR pressure to thermal gas pressure, β is the ratio of thermal to magnetic pressure, and ωff is the free-fall frequency. The CRBI operates alongside buoyancy instabilities driven by background heat fluxes, i.e. the heat-flux-driven buoyancy instability (HBI) and the magneto-thermal instability (MTI). When the thermal mean free path lmfp is ≪ the gas scale height H, the HBI/MTI set the growth rate on large scales, while the CRBI sets the growth rate on small scales. Conversely, when lmfp ∼ H and (pc/pg)β1/2 ≳ 1, CRBI growth rates exceed HBI/MTI growth rates even on large scales. Our results suggest that CR-driven instabilities may be partially responsible for the sound waves/weak shocks and turbulence observed in galaxy clusters. CR-driven instabilities generated near radio bubbles may also play an important role redistributing AGN energy throughout clusters. 

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