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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Astrophysics and Astronomy

2021

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Shock waves

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Free-Free Absorption In Hot Relativistic Flows: Application To Fast Radio Bursts, Esha Kundu, Bing Zhang Aug 2021

Free-Free Absorption In Hot Relativistic Flows: Application To Fast Radio Bursts, Esha Kundu, Bing Zhang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Magnetic flares create hot relativistic shocks outside the light cylinder radius of a magnetized star. Radio emission produced in such a shock or at a radius smaller than the shock undergoes free–free absorption while passing through the shocked medium. In this work, we demonstrate that this free–free absorption can lead to a negative drift in the frequency-time spectra. Whether it is related to the downward drift pattern observed in fast radio bursts (FRBs) is unclear. However, if the FRB down-drifting is due to this mechanism then it will be pronounced in those shocks that have isotropic kinetic energies ≳1044 erg. …


A Mechanical Model For Magnetized Relativistic Blastwaves, Shunke Ai, Bing Zhang Jul 2021

A Mechanical Model For Magnetized Relativistic Blastwaves, Shunke Ai, Bing Zhang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

The evolution of a relativistic blastwave is usually delineated under the assumption of pressure balance between forward- and reverse-shocked regions. However, such a treatment usually violates the energy conservation law, and is inconsistent with existing magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulation results. A mechanical model of non-magnetized blastwaves was proposed in previous work to solve the problem. In this paper, we generalize the mechanical model to the case of a blastwave driven by an ejecta with an arbitrary magnetization parameter $\sigma_{\rm ej}$. We test our modified mechanical model by considering a long-lasting magnetized ejecta and found that it is much better than the …