High Energy Astrophysics -
Spring 2010
Homework #7 - due April 22
1. Find the change in energy of a relativistic particle which
bounces off a heavy wall which is moving with a velocity V. Assume that the angle of
incidence equals the angle of reflection.
2. The winds flowing form young pulsars are thought to produce
strong shocks which can accelerate relativistic particles. Is the
maximum energy to which particles can be accelerated likely to be
higher in pulsar or a supernova?
3. Consider a distribution of sources all with equal luminosity
that are distributed homogenously in space. If the sources fill a
three dimensional volume, so that the measured distribution of fluxes,
log(N>S) versus log(S) where S is the source flux and N
is the number of sources, has an exponent of -3/2. Find the
exponent of the distribution for the case where the sources (and the
observer) are confined to a plane.