Synchrotron-Regulated Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence: Emission, Polarization, and Faraday Rotation

[2608.10748] Synchrotron-Regulated Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence: Emission, Polarization, and Faraday Rotation Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Search arXiv Press Enter to search · Advanced search Astrophysics > High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena arXiv:2608.10748 (astro-ph) [Submitted on 11 Aug 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 14 Aug 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: Synchrotron-Regulated Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence: Emission, Polarization, and Faraday Rotation Authors: Xiaochen Sun , Luca Comisso , Lorenzo Sironi , Anatoly Spitkovsky , Alexander Philippov View a PDF of the paper titled Synchrotron-Regulated Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence: Emission, Polarization, and Faraday Rotation, by Xiaochen Sun and 4 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Relativistic magnetized plasmas in many high-energy astrophysical systems are both turbulent and strongly radiative, yet their nonlinear dynamics and radiative outcomes remain poorly understood. Here we present results from three-dimensional driven turbulence simulations in relativistic magnetohydrodynamics with synchrotron cooling. We compute Faraday rotation measures, synthetic synchrotron spectra and linear polarization maps from the simulated turbulence. The balance between energy injection from turbulent driving and synchrotron cooling keeps the plasma, on average, relativistically hot, thereby influencing the rotation measure. Synchrotron cooling triggers the thermal instability and drives the plasma into hot dilute and cold dense phases, which enhances the spatial and temporal variability of synchrotron emission, especially at high frequencies. These diagnostics show qualitative similarities to observations of fast radio bursts, pulsar wind nebulae, and blazars, suggesting that turbulence may play an important role in shaping emission and propagation effects around high-energy sources. Comments: Submitted to AAS journal Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) Cite as: arXiv:2608.10748 [astro-ph.HE] (or arXiv:2608.10748v2 [astro-ph.HE] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.10748 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Xiaochen Sun [ view email ] [v1] Tue, 11 Aug 2026 10:06:28 UTC (15,142 KB) [v2] Fri, 14 Aug 2026 23:45:32 UTC (15,142 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Synchrotron-Regulated Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence: Emission, Polarization, and Faraday Rotation, by Xiaochen Sun and 4 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Additional Features Audio Summary Current browse context: astro-ph.HE < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: astro-ph References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from

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