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  1. ABSTRACT

    Cosmic rays (CRs) with energies ≪ TeV comprise a significant component of the interstellar medium (ISM). Major uncertainties in CR behaviour on observable scales (much larger than CR gyroradii) stem from how magnetic fluctuations scatter CRs in pitch angle. Traditional first-principles models, which assume these magnetic fluctuations are weak and uniformly scatter CRs in a homogeneous ISM, struggle to reproduce basic observables such as the dependence of CR residence times and scattering rates on rigidity. We therefore explore a new category of ‘patchy’ CR scattering models, wherein CRs are pre-dominantly scattered by intermittent strong scattering structures with small volume-filling factors. These models produce the observed rigidity dependence with a simple size distribution constraint, such that larger scattering structures are rarer but can scatter a wider range of CR energies. To reproduce the empirically inferred CR scattering rates, the mean free path between scattering structures must be $\ell _{\rm mfp}\sim 10\, {\rm pc}$ at GeV energies. We derive constraints on the sizes, internal properties, mass/volume-filling factors, and the number density any such structures would need to be both physically and observationally consistent. We consider a range of candidate structures, both large scale (e.g. H ii regions) and small scale (e.g. intermittent turbulent structures, perhaps even associated with radio plasma scattering) and show that while many macroscopic candidates can be immediately ruled out as the primary CR scattering sites, many smaller structures remain viable and merit further theoretical study. We discuss future observational constraints that could test these models.

     
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  2. 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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  3. ABSTRACT

    Models for cosmic ray (CR) dynamics fundamentally depend on the rate of CR scattering from magnetic fluctuations. In the ISM, for CRs with energies ∼MeV-TeV, these fluctuations are usually attributed either to ‘extrinsic turbulence’ (ET) – a cascade from larger scales – or ‘self-confinement’ (SC) – self-generated fluctuations from CR streaming. Using simple analytic arguments and detailed ‘live’ numerical CR transport calculations in galaxy simulations, we show that both of these, in standard form, cannot explain even basic qualitative features of observed CR spectra. For ET, any spectrum that obeys critical balance or features realistic anisotropy, or any spectrum that accounts for finite damping below the dissipation scale, predicts qualitatively incorrect spectral shapes and scalings of B/C and other species. Even if somehow one ignored both anisotropy and damping, observationally required scattering rates disagree with ET predictions by orders of magnitude. For SC, the dependence of driving on CR energy density means that it is nearly impossible to recover observed CR spectral shapes and scalings, and again there is an orders-of-magnitude normalization problem. But more severely, SC solutions with super-Alfvénic streaming are unstable. In live simulations, they revert to either arbitrarily rapid CR escape with zero secondary production, or to bottleneck solutions with far-too-strong CR confinement and secondary production. Resolving these fundamental issues without discarding basic plasma processes requires invoking different drivers for scattering fluctuations. These must act on a broad range of scales with a power spectrum obeying several specific (but plausible) constraints.

     
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  4. ABSTRACT We investigate the possibility of cosmic ray (CR) confinement by charged dust grains through resonant drag instabilities (RDIs). We perform magnetohydrodynamic particle-in-cell simulations of magnetized gas mixed with charged dust and cosmic rays, with the gyro-radii of dust and GeV CRs on ∼au scales fully resolved. As a first study, we focus on one type of RDI wherein charged grains drift super-Alfvénically, with Lorentz forces strongly dominating over drag forces. Dust grains are unstable to the RDIs and form concentrated columns and sheets, whose scale grows until saturating at the simulation box size. Initially perfectly streaming CRs are strongly scattered by RDI-excited Alfvén waves, with the growth rate of the CR perpendicular velocity components equaling the growth rate of magnetic field perturbations. These rates are well-predicted by analytic linear theory. CRs finally become isotropized and drift at least at ∼vA by unidirectional Alfvén waves excited by the RDIs, with a uniform distribution of the pitch angle cosine μ and a flat profile of the CR pitch angle diffusion coefficient Dμμ around μ = 0, without the ‘90○ pitch angle problem.’ With CR feedback on the gas included, Dμμ decreases by a factor of a few, indicating a lower CR scattering rate, because the backreaction on the RDI from the CR pressure adds extra wave damping, leading to lower quasi-steady-state scattering rates. Our study demonstrates that the dust-induced CR confinement can be very important under certain conditions, e.g. the dusty circumgalactic medium around quasars or superluminous galaxies. 
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  5. ABSTRACT

    In dusty cool-star outflow or ejection events around asymptotic giant branch (AGB) or R Coronae Borealis or RCB-like stars, dust is accelerated by radiation from the star and coupled to the gas via collisional drag forces. It has recently been shown that such dust-gas mixtures are unstable to a super-class of instabilities called the resonant drag instabilities (RDIs), which promote dust clustering. We therefore consider idealized simulations of the RDIs operating on a spectrum of dust grain sizes subject to radiative acceleration (allowing for different grain optical properties), coupled to the gas with a realistic drag law, including or excluding the effects of magnetic fields and charged grains, and calculate for the first time how the RDIs could contribute to observed variability. We show that the RDIs naturally produce significant variations (spatially and temporally) ($\sim 10\!-\!20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ 1 σ-level) in the extinction, corresponding to $\sim 0.1\!-\!1\,$mag level in the stellar types above, on time-scales of order months to a year. The fluctuations are surprisingly robust to the assumed size of the source as they are dominated by large-scale modes, which also means their spatial structure could be resolved in some nearby systems. We also quantify how this produces variations in the line-of-sight grain size-distribution. All of these variations are similar to those observed, suggesting that the RDIs may play a key role driving observed spatial and temporal variability in dust extinction within dusty outflow/ejection events around cool stars. We further propose that the measured variations in grain sizes could directly be used to identify the presence of the RDIs in close by systems with observations.

     
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  6. ABSTRACT We derive a consistent set of moment equations for cosmic ray (CR)-magnetohydrodynamics, assuming a gyrotropic distribution function (DF). Unlike previous efforts, we derive a closure, akin to the M1 closure in radiation hydrodynamics (RHD), that is valid in both the nearly isotropic DF and/or strong-scattering regimes, and the arbitrarily anisotropic DF or free-streaming regimes, as well as allowing for anisotropic scattering and transport/magnetic field structure. We present the appropriate two-moment closure and equations for various choices of evolved variables, including the CR phase space DF f, number density n, total energy e, kinetic energy ϵ, and their fluxes or higher moments, and the appropriate coupling terms to the gas. We show that this naturally includes and generalizes a variety of terms including convection/fluid motion, anisotropic CR pressure, streaming, diffusion, gyro-resonant/streaming losses, and re-acceleration. We discuss how this extends previous treatments of CR transport including diffusion and moment methods and popular forms of the Fokker–Planck equation, as well as how this differs from the analogous M1-RHD equations. We also present two different methods for incorporating a reduced speed of light (RSOL) to reduce time-step limitations: In both, we carefully address where the RSOL (versus true c) must appear for the correct behaviour to be recovered in all interesting limits, and show how current implementations of CRs with an RSOL neglect some additional terms. 
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  7. ABSTRACT

    Radiation-dust driven outflows, where radiation pressure on dust grains accelerates gas, occur in many astrophysical environments. Almost all previous numerical studies of these systems have assumed that the dust was perfectly coupled to the gas. However, it has recently been shown that the dust in these systems is unstable to a large class of ‘resonant drag instabilities’ (RDIs) which de-couple the dust and gas dynamics and could qualitatively change the non-linear outcome of these outflows. We present the first simulations of radiation-dust driven outflows in stratified, inhomogeneous media, including explicit grain dynamics and a realistic spectrum of grain sizes and charge, magnetic fields and Lorentz forces on grains (which dramatically enhance the RDIs), Coulomb and Epstein drag forces, and explicit radiation transport allowing for different grain absorption and scattering properties. In this paper, we consider conditions resembling giant molecular clouds (GMCs), H ii regions, and distributed starbursts, where optical depths are modest (≲1), single-scattering effects dominate radiation-dust coupling, Lorentz forces dominate over drag on grains, and the fastest-growing RDIs are similar, such as magnetosonic and fast-gyro RDIs. These RDIs generically produce strong size-dependent dust clustering, growing non-linear on time-scales that are much shorter than the characteristic times of the outflow. The instabilities produce filamentary and plume-like or ‘horsehead’ nebular morphologies that are remarkably similar to observed dust structures in GMCs and H ii regions. Additionally, in some cases they strongly alter the magnetic field structure and topology relative to filaments. Despite driving strong micro-scale dust clumping which leaves some gas ‘behind,’ an order-unity fraction of the gas is always efficiently entrained by dust.

     
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  8. ABSTRACT

    We study the linear growth and non-linear saturation of the ‘acoustic Resonant Drag Instability’ (RDI) when the dust grains, which drive the instability, have a wide, continuous spectrum of different sizes. This physics is generally applicable to dusty winds driven by radiation pressure, such as occurs around red-giant stars, star-forming regions, or active galactic nuclei. Depending on the physical size of the grains compared to the wavelength of the radiation field that drives the wind, two qualitatively different regimes emerge. In the case of grains that are larger than the radiation’s wavelength – termed the constant-drift regime – the grain’s equilibrium drift velocity through the gas is approximately independent of grain size, leading to strong correlations between differently sized grains that persist well into the saturated non-linear turbulence. For grains that are smaller than the radiation’s wavelength – termed the non-constant-drift regime – the linear instability grows more slowly than the single-grain-size RDI and only the larger grains exhibit RDI-like behaviour in the saturated state. A detailed study of grain clumping and grain–grain collisions shows that outflows in the constant-drift regime may be effective sites for grain growth through collisions, with large collision rates but low collision velocities.

     
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  9. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT We argue that charged dust grains could significantly impact the confinement and transport of galactic cosmic rays. For sub-GeV to ∼103 GeV cosmic rays, small-scale parallel Alfvén waves, which isotropize cosmic rays through gyro-resonant interactions, are also gyro-resonant with charged grains. If the dust is nearly stationary, as in the bulk of the interstellar medium, Alfvén waves are damped by dust. This will reduce the amplitude of Alfvén waves produced by the cosmic rays through the streaming instability, thus enhancing cosmic ray transport. In well-ionized regions, the dust damping rate is larger by a factor of ∼10 than other mechanisms that damp parallel Alfvén waves at the scales relevant for ∼GeV cosmic rays, suggesting that dust could play a key role in regulating cosmic ray transport. In astrophysical situations in which the dust moves through the gas with super-Alfvénic velocities, Alfvén waves are rendered unstable, which could directly scatter cosmic rays. This interaction has the potential to create a strong feedback mechanism where dust, driven through the gas by radiation pressure, then strongly enhances the confinement of cosmic rays, increasing their capacity to drive outflows. This mechanism may act in the circumgalactic medium around star-forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei. 
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  10. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT We develop simple, physically motivated models for drag-induced dust–gas streaming instabilities, which are thought to be crucial for clumping grains to form planetesimals in protoplanetary discs. The models explain, based on the physics of gaseous epicyclic motion and dust–gas drag forces, the most important features of the streaming instability and its simple generalization, the disc settling instability. Some of the key properties explained by our models include the sudden change in the growth rate of the streaming instability when the dust-to-gas mass ratio surpasses one, the slow growth rate of the streaming instability compared to the settling instability for smaller grains, and the main physical processes underlying the growth of the most unstable modes in different regimes. As well as providing helpful simplified pictures for understanding the operation of an interesting and fundamental astrophysical fluid instability, our models may prove useful for analysing simulations and developing non-linear theories of planetesimal growth in discs. 
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