Exploring the non-linear dynamics of relativistic astrophysical shocks with kinetic simulations and advanced visualisation methods

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Plasmas that collide at relativistic speeds form shocks. Such plasma collisions occur at cosmological distances between the interstellar medium and, for example, the blast shell of Gamma Ray Bursts or the collimated jets of Active Galactic Nuclei. They may also form in our galactic neighborhood inside the accretion disks of black holes, (known as microquasars) and at supernovae. These shocks convert energy from the plasma bulk flow into cosmic ray radiation and a better understanding of the underlying processes is of uttermost importance for explaining the origin of the highly energetic cosmic ray radiation. We propose here to examine such energy conversion processes in plasma which are non-linear and require a relativistic treatment. We employ an electromagnetic and fully relativistic particle-in-cell code to examine them in one and two spatial dimensions at high resolutions. The resulting data sets will have a size of the order of a Terabyte and we must employ and further develop our custom-built advanced visualisation software to maximize the information we can extract from the simulation data. The proposed interdisciplinary project combines elements of astrophysics, plasma simulations and scientific visualisation. It will lead to a better understanding of the spatio-temporal evolution of relativistic shocks in a collisionless plasma in a fully kinetic framework, as well as of the peak energies up to which particles can be accelerated by these shocks.