Radiative Processes in Relativistic Astrophysical Plasmas

Synchrotron radiation and inverse Compton (IC) scattering are the two most essential radiation mechanisms in high energy astrophysics. Synchrotron radiation typically dominates lower energy emission, up to GeV, and IC scattering dominates higher energy gamma-ray emission. In this work, radiation codes are developed to calculate broadband synchrotron and IC spectra for relativistic astrophysical sources: Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe) and Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). Our robust radiation code takes into account varying intrinsic plasma properties (e.g., magnetic field evolution), various inverse Compton processes (synchrotron self-Compton and external Compton) while accounting for Klein-Nishina effects, as well as relativistic bulk motion of the emitting plasma.