Scaling of relativistic shear flows with the bulk Lorentz factor
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Date
2018Author
Liang, Edison
Böttcher, Markus
Roustazadeh, Parisa
Fu, Wen
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We compare Particle-in-cell simulation results of relativistic electron–ion shear flows with different bulk Lorentz factors,
and discuss their implications for spine-sheath models of blazar versus gamma-ray burst (GRB) jets. Specifically, we
find that most properties of the shear boundary layer scale with the bulk Lorentz factor: the lower the Lorentz factor, the
thinner the boundary layer, and the weaker the self-generated fields. Similarly, the energized electron spectrum peaks at
an energy near the ion drift energy, which increases with bulk Lorentz factor, and the beaming of the accelerated
electrons along the shear interface gets narrower with increasing Lorentz factor. This predicts a strong correlation
between emitted photon energy, angular beaming, and temporal variability with the bulk Lorentz factor.
Observationally, we expect systematic differences between the high-energy emissions of blazars and GRB jets
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/26577https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaa7f5
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aaa7f5