Princeton Center for Heliophysics Seminar

Collisionless shocks in space plasma are frequently observed in settings where the plasma is compressed against a magnetosphere (e.g., Earth’s bow shock) or in the neighborhood of energetic events such as supernovae or gamma ray bursts. This raises a fundamental question: are such significant sources of free energy necessary for the formation of these shocks? Through an analysis of the Vlasov-Maxwell equations where radiative cooling effects are incorporated, we demonstrate strong well-posedness results which suggest the affirmative answer.