1,720,983 research outputs found
Reconnection and small-scale fields in 2D-3V hybrid-kinetic driven turbulence simulations
Full text linkThe understanding of the fundamental properties of turbulence in collisionless plasmas, such as the solar wind, is a frontier problem in plasma physics. In particular, the occurrence of magnetic reconnection in turbulent plasmas and its interplay with a fully-developed turbulent state is still a matter of great debate. Here we investigate the properties of small-scale electromagnetic fluctuations and the role of fast magnetic reconnection in the development of a quasi-steady turbulent state by means of 2D-3V high-resolution Vlasov-Maxwell simulations. At the largest scales turbulence is fed by external random forcing. We show that large-scale turbulent motions establish a -5 /3 spectrum at K perp;di <1and, at the same time, feed the formation of current sheets where magnetic reconnection occurs. As a result coherent magnetic structures are generated which, together with the rise of the associated small-scale non-ideal electric field, mediate the transition between the inertial and the subproton-scale spectrum. A mechanism that boosts the magnetic reconnection process is identified, making the generation of coherent structures rapid enough to be competitive with wave mode interactions and leading to the formation of a fully-developed turbulent spectrum across the so-called ion break
Kinetic cascade in solar-wind turbulence: 3D3V hybrid-kinetic simulations with electron inertia
Full text linkUnderstanding the nature of the turbulent fluctuations below the ion gyroradius in solar-wind (SW) turbulence is a great challenge. Recent studies have been mostly in favor of kinetic Alfvén wave (KAW)-type fluctuations, but other kinds of fluctuations with characteristics typical of magnetosonic, whistler, and ion-Bernstein modes could also play a role depending on the plasma parameters. Here, we investigate the properties of the subproton-scale cascade with high-resolution hybrid-kinetic simulations of freely decaying turbulence in 3D3V phase space, including electron inertia effects. Two proton plasma beta are explored: the "intermediate" Î2 p = 1 and "low" Î2 p = 0.2 regimes, both typically observed in the SW and corona. The magnetic energy spectum exhibits and power laws at Î2 p = 1, while they are slightly steeper at Î2 p = 0.2. Nevertheless, both regimes develop a spectral anisotropy consistent with K⥠â1⁄4 Kâ¥2/3at K⥠pp and pronounced small-scale intermittency. In this context, we find that the kinetic-scale cascade is dominated by KAW-like fluctuations at Î2 p = 1, whereas the low-Î2 case presents a more complex scenario suggesting the simultaneous presence of different types of fluctuations. In both regimes, however, a possible role of the ion-Bernstein-type fluctuations at the smallest scales cannot be excluded
Pressure anisotropy generation in a magnetized plasma configuration with a shear flow velocity
No full textThe nonlinear evolution of the Kelvin Helmholtz instability in a magnetized plasma with a perpendicular flow close to, or in, the supermagnetosonic regime can produce a significant parallel-to-perpendicular pressure anisotropy. This anisotropy, localized inside the flow shear region, can make the configuration unstable either to the mirror or to the firehose instability and, in general, can affect the development of the KHI. The interface between the solar windand the Earth’s magnetospheric plasma at the magnetospheric equatorial flanks provides a relevant setting for the development of this complex nonlinear dynamics
Collision-dependent power law scalings in two dimensional gyrokinetic turbulence
Full text linkNonlinear gyrokinetics provides a suitable framework to describe short-wavelength turbulence in magnetized laboratory and astrophysical plasmas. In the electrostatic limit, this system is known to exhibit a free energy cascade towards small scales in (perpendicular) real and/or velocity space. The dissipation of free energy is always due to collisions (no matter how weak the collisionality), but may be spread out across a wide range of scales. Here, we focus on freely decaying two dimensional electrostatic turbulence on sub-ion-gyroradius scales. An existing scaling theory for the turbulent cascade in the weakly collisional limit is generalized to the moderately collisional regime. In this context, non-universal power law scalings due to multiscale dissipation are predicted, and this prediction is confirmed by means of direct numerical simulations. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC
Eulerian Approach to Solve the Vlasov Equation and Hybrid-Vlasov Simulations
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Plasma turbulence at ion scales: a comparison between particle in cell and Eulerian hybrid-kinetic approaches
No full textKinetic-range turbulence in magnetized plasmas and, in particular, in the context of solar wind turbulence has been extensively investigated over the past decades via numerical simulations. Among others, one of the widely adopted reduced plasma models is the so-called hybrid-kinetic model, where the ions are fully kinetic and the electrons are treated as a neutralizing (inertial or massless) fluid. Within the same model, different numerical methods and/or approaches to turbulence development have been employed. In the present work, we present a comparison between two-dimensional hybrid-kinetic simulations of plasma turbulence obtained with two complementary approaches spanning approximately two decades in wavenumber – from the magnetohydrodynamics inertial range to scales well below the ion gyroradius – with a state-of-the-art accuracy. One approach employs hybrid particle-in-cell simulations of freely decaying Alfvénic turbulence, whereas the other consists of Eulerian hybrid Vlasov–Maxwell simulations of turbulence continuously driven with partially compressible large-scale fluctuations. Despite the completely different initialization and injection/drive at large scales, the same properties of turbulent fluctuations at k rhoi are observed, where k? is the fluctuations’ wavenumber perpendicular to the background magnetic field and is the ion Larmor radius. The system indeed self-consistently ‘reprocesses’ the turbulent fluctuations while they are cascading towards smaller and smaller scales, in a way which actually depends on the plasma beta parameter ( is the ratio between the thermal and the magnetic pressures). Small-scale turbulence has been found to be mainly populated by kinetic Alfvén wave (KAW) fluctuations for > 1, whereas KAW fluctuations are only sub-dominant for low-beta
Pressure tensor in the presence of velocity shear: Stationary solutions and self-consistent equilibria
Full text linkObservations and numerical simulations of laboratory and space plasmas in almost collisionless regimes reveal anisotropic and non-gyrotropic particle distribution functions. We investigate how such states can persist in the presence of a sheared flow. We focus our attention on the pressure tensor equation in a magnetized plasma and derive analytical self-consistent plasma equilibria which exhibit a novel asymmetry with respect to the magnetic field direction. These results are relevant for investigating, within fluid models that retain the full pressure tensor dynamics, plasma configurations where a background shear flow is present
A signature of anisotropic cosmic-ray transport in the gamma-ray sky
No full textA crucial process in Galactic cosmic-ray (CR) transport is the spatial diffusion due to the interaction with the interstellar turbulent magnetic field. Usually, CR diffusion is assumed to be uniform and isotropic all across the Galaxy. However, this picture is clearly inaccurate: several data-driven and theoretical arguments, as well as dedicated numerical simulations, show that diffusion exhibits highly anisotropic properties with respect to the direction of a background (ordered) magnetic field (i.e., parallel or perpendicular to it). In this paper we focus on a recently discovered anomaly in the hadronic CR spectrum inferred by the Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data at different positions in the Galaxy, i.e. the progressive hardening of the proton slope at low Galactocentric radii. We propose the idea that this feature can be interpreted as a signature of anisotropic diffusion in the complex Galactic magnetic field: in particular, the harder slope in the inner Galaxy is due, in our scenario, to the parallel diffusive escape along the poloidal component of the large-scale, regular, magnetic field. We implement this idea in a numerical framework, based on the DRAGON code, and perform detailed numerical tests on the accuracy of our setup. We discuss how the effect proposed depends on the relevant free parameters involved. Based on low-energy extrapolation of the few focused numerical simulations aimed at determining the scalings of the anisotropic diffusion coefficients, we finally present a set of plausible models that reproduce the behavior of the CR proton slopes inferred by gamma-ray data
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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