Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: Although the origin of cosmic rays (CRs) remains an open question, collisionless magnetized shock waves are widely regarded as key sites for particle acceleration. Recent theories further suggest that shock-shock collisions in stellar clusters could provide the additional acceleration needed to explain the observed high-energy CR spectrum. Here, we investigate this hypothesis through a laser-based experiment that creates magnetized plasma conditions similar to astrophysical environments. Our results demonstrate that interpenetrating collisionless shocks can significantly boost the energy of ambient protons previously energized by the individual shocks, while also improving the overall acceleration efficiency. Numerical kinetic simulations corroborate these findings, revealing that protons are reaccelerated via their bouncing motion in the convective electric fields of the colliding magnetized flows. By allowing to highly energize ambient protons, our novel colliding-shock platform opens the prospect to test the long-discussed mechanism of diffusive shock acceleration in a controlled laboratory setting.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Yao, W., Cohen, I., Gerona, P. Suarez, Ahmed, H., Bott, A. F. A., Chen, S. N., Cook, M., Lelièvre, R., Martin, P., Waltenspiel, T., Antici, P., Béard, J., Borghesi, M., Caprioli, D., Ciardi, A., d'Humières, E., François, M., Gremillet, L., Marcowith, A., Miceli, M., Seebaruth, T., Orlando, S., Fuchs, J.
Institutions: École Polytechnique, Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses, Laboratoire d'Étude de l'Univers et des Phénomènes Extrêmes, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, Central Laser Facility, University of Oxford, Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics, Autorité de sûreté nucléaire et de radioprotection, Queen's University Belfast, Centre Lasers Intenses et Applications, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses, University of Chicago, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, CEA DAM Île-de-France, Laboratoire Matière en Conditions Extrêmes, Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier, University of Palermo, Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory, National Institute for Astrophysics
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4414447588
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