Relativistic Particle Acceleration in a Folded Current Sheet

Two-dimensional particle simulations of a relativistic Harris current sheet of pair (e^+/-) plasmas have demonstrated that the system is unstable to the relativistic drift kink instability and that a new kind of acceleration process takes place in the deformed current sheet. This process contributes to the generation of nonthermal particles and contributes to the fast magnetic dissipation in the current sheet structure. The acceleration mechanism and a brief comparison with relativistic magnetic reconnection are presented.