Motivated by the fact that geomagnetic field inhomogeneity is weak close to the chorus generation region and the observational evidence that falling‐tone chorus tend to have large oblique angles of propagation, we propose that falling‐tone chorus start as a marginally unstable mode. The marginally unstable mode requires the presence of a…

Accretion disks are likely threaded by external vertical magnetic flux, which enhances the level of turbulence via the magnetorotational instability (MRI). Using shearing-box simulations, we find that such external magnetic flux also strongly enhances the amplitude of banded radial density variations known as zonal flows. Moreover, we report…

A linear experiment dedicated to the study of driven magnetic reconnection is presented. The new device (VINETA II) is suitable for investigating both collisional and near collisionless reconnection. Reconnection is achieved by externally driving magnetic field lines towards an X-point, inducing a current in the background plasma which…

The duration distribution of long Gamma Ray Bursts reveals a plateau at durations shorter than ~20 s (in the observer frame) and a power-law decline at longer durations (Bromberg et al., 2012). Such a plateau arises naturally in the Collapsar model. In this model the engine has to operate long enough to push the jet out of the stellar envelope…

The Crab Nebula was formed after the collapse of a massive star about a thousand years ago, leaving behind a pulsar that inflates a bubble of ultra-relativistic electron-positron pairs permeated with magnetic field. The observation of brief but bright flares of energetic gamma rays suggests that pairs are accelerated to PeV energies within a…

The discovery of rapid synchrotron gamma-ray flares above 100 MeV from the Crab Nebula has attracted new interest in alternative particle acceleration mechanisms in pulsar wind nebulae. Diffuse shock-acceleration fails to explain the flares because particle acceleration and emission occur during a single or even sub-Larmor timescale. In…

We investigate beta-interactions of free nucleons and their impact on the electron fraction (Y_e) and r-process nucleosynthesis in ejecta characteristic of binary neutron star mergers (BNSMs). For that we employ trajectories from a relativistic BNSM model to represent the density-temperature evolutions in our parametric study. In the high…

Supra-arcade downflows (hereafter referred to as SADs) are low-emission, elongated, finger-like features usually observed in active-region coronae above post-eruption flare arcades. Observations exhibit downward moving SADs intertwined with bright upward moving spikes. Whereas SADs are dark voids, spikes are brighter, denser structures…

This is the first in a series of papers about collisionless, electrostatic micro-instabilities in stellarators, with an emphasis on trapped-particle modes. It is found that, in so-called maximum-J configurations, trapped-particle instabilities are absent in large regions of parameter space. Quasi-isodynamic stellarators have this…

We examine the effect of an external guide field and current sheet thickness on the growth rates and nature of three dimensional unstable modes of an electron current sheet driven by electron shear flow. The growth rate of the fastest growing mode drops rapidly with current sheet thickness but increases slowly with the strength of the guide…

A new mechanism to form a magnetic pressure supported, high temperature corona above the photosphere of an accretion disk is explored using three dimensional radiation magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. The thermal properties of the disk are calculated self-consistently by balancing radiative cooling through the surfaces of the disk with…

We study super-Eddington accretion flows onto black holes using a global three-dimensional radiation magneto-hydrodynamical simulation. We solve the time-dependent radiative transfer equation for the specific intensities to accurately calculate the angular distribution of the emitted radiation. Turbulence generated by the magneto-rotational…

We present the new code ALCAR developed to model multidimensional, multi energy-group neutrino transport in the context of supernovae and neutron-star mergers. The algorithm solves the evolution equations of the 0th- and 1st-order angular moments of the specific intensity, supplemented by an algebraic relation for the 2nd-moment tensor to…

We present the first comprehensive study of r-process element nucleosynthesis in the ejecta of compact binary mergers (CBMs) and their relic black-hole (BH)-torus systems. The evolution of the BH-accretion tori is simulated for seconds with a Newtonian hydrodynamics code including viscosity effects, pseudo-Newtonian gravity for rotating BHs,…