Density filament and helical field line structures in three dimensional Weibel-mediated collisionless shocks

Abstract

Collisionless shocks mediated by Weibel instability are attracting attention for their relevance to experimental demonstrations of astrophysical shocks in high-intensity laser facilities. The three dimensional structure of Weibel-mediated shocks is investigated through a fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulation. The structures obtained are characterized by the following features: (i) helical magnetic field lines elongated in the direction upstream of the shock region, (ii) high and low density filaments inside the helical field lines. These structures originate from the interaction between counter-streaming plasma flow and magnetic vortexes caused by Weibel instability, and potentially affect the shock formation mechanism.