Convective instability of relativistic, decelerating ejecta : an origin of magnetic fields in the early afterglow phase?

by Amir Levinson (Tel Aviv University)

Wednesday 10 Jun 2009, 11:00 → 12:20 Europe/Stockholm

Nordita seminar room 132:028

I'll describe work in progress on the stability of a decelerating, relativistic shell. Preliminary results of a linear stability analysis indicate that the system is stable to disturbances having angular scales larger than the inverse of the Lorentz factor. At smaller angular scales the system is unstable to convective modes. The growth rate is largest at the contact discontinuity, but considerable distortions of the reverse and forward shocks are observed. The implications for magnetic field generation and afterglow physics will be considered.

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