Long term evolution of magnetic turbulence in relativistic collisionless shocks

We study the long term evolution of magnetic fields generated by an initially unmagnetized collisionless relativistic e⁺e^- shock. Our 2D particle-in-cell numerical simulations show that downstream of such a Weibel-mediated shock, particle distributions are approximately isotropic, relativistic Maxwellians, and the magnetic turbulence is highly intermittent spatially, non-propagating, and decaying. Using linear kinetic theory, we find a simple analytic form for these damping rates. Our theory predicts that the overall magnetic energy decays as (ω_p t) ^-q with q ∼ 1, which compares favorably with simulations, but predicts overly rapid damping of short-wavelength modes. The magnetic trapping of particles within the magnetic structures may be the origin of this discrepancy. We conclude that initially unmagnetized relativistic shocks in electron-positron plasmas are unable to form persistent downstream magnetic fields. These results put interesting constraints on synchrotron models for the prompt and afterglow emission from GRBs.