Kinetic Beaming in Radiative Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection: A Mechanism for Rapid Gamma-Ray Flares in Jets

Understand

Rapid gamma-ray flares pose an astrophysical puzzle, requiring mechanisms both to accelerate energetic particles and to produce fast observed variability.

• These dual requirements may be satisfied by collisionless relativistic magnetic reconnection.
• On the one hand, relativistic reconnection can energize gamma-ray emitting electrons.
• On the other, as previous kinetic simulations have shown, the reconnection acceleration mechanism preferentially focuses high-energy particles -- and their emitted photons -- into beams, which may create rapid blips in flux as they cross a telescope's line of sight.