T. N. Parashar

Kinetic dissipation and anisotropic heating in a turbulent collisionless plasma

The kinetic evolution of the Orszag–Tang vortex is studied using collisionless hybrid simulations. In magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) this configuration leads rapidly to broadband turbulence. At large length scales, the evolution of the hybrid simulations is very similar to MHD, with magnetic power spectra displaying scaling similar to a Kolmogorov scaling of −5/3. At small scales, differences from MHD arise, as energy dissipates into heat almost exclusively through the magnetic field. The magnetic energy spectrum of the hybrid simulation shows a break where linear theory predicts that the Hall term in Ohm’s law becomes significant, leading to dispersive kinetic Alfven waves. A key result is that protons are heated preferentially in the plane perpendicular to the mean magnetic field, creating a proton temperature anisotropy of the type observed in the corona and solar wind.

Kinetic driven turbulence: Structure in space and time

The structure in space and time of a driven turbulent magnetoplasma is analyzed using kinetic simulations. For a two dimensional case with a strong uniform out-of-plane magnetic field, large scale driving produces a turbulent state that spans fluid scales to kinetic proton scales. There are fluid electrons in this hybrid representation. In near steady conditions, spectral analysis shows an almost complete absence of discrete point spectral features that would be associated with a dispersion relation and wave activity. While there is indication of a low level of wave activity, the results show that the dynamics are dominated by nonlinear activity. Implications for understanding plasma cascade, dissipation, and heating are discussed.

Effect of driving frequency on excitation of turbulence in a kinetic plasma

The effect of driving frequency on the efficiency of turbulence generation through magnetic forcing is studied using kinetic hybrid simulations with fully kinetic ions and fluid electrons. The efficiency of driving is quantified by examining the energy input into magnetic field as well as the thermal energy for various driving frequencies. The driving is efficient in exciting turbulence and heating the plasma when the time period of the driving is larger than the nonlinear time of the system. For driving at faster time scales, the energy input is weak and the steady state energy is much lower. The heating of the plasma is correlated with intermittent properties of the magnetic field, which are manifested as non-Gaussian statistics. Implications for turbulence in solar corona are discussed.

Intermittency, coherent structures and dissipation in plasma turbulence

Collisionless dissipation in turbulentplasmas such as the solar wind and the solar corona has been an intensively studied subject recently, with new insights often emerging from numerical simulation. Here we report results from high resolution, fully kinetic simulations of plasma turbulence in both two (2D) and three (3D) dimensions, studying the relationship between intermittency and dissipation. The simulations show development of turbulent coherent structures, characterized by sheet-like current density structures spanning a range of scales. An approximate dissipation measure is employed, based on work done by the electromagnetic field in the local electron fluid frame. This surrogate dissipation measure is highly concentrated in small subvolumes in both 2D and 3D simulations. Fully kinetic simulations are also compared with magnetohydrodynamics(MHD) simulations in terms of coherent structures and dissipation. The interesting result emerges that the conditional averages of dissipation measure scale very similarly with normalized current densityJ in 2D and 3D particle-in-cell and in MHD. To the extent that the surrogate dissipation measure is accurate, this result implies that on average dissipation scales as ∼J2 in turbulent kinetic plasma. Multifractal intermittency is seen in the inertial range in both 2D and 3D, but at scales ∼ion inertial length, the scaling is closer to monofractal.

TRANSITION FROM KINETIC TO MHD BEHAVIOR IN A COLLISIONLESS PLASMA

The study of kinetic effects in heliospheric plasmas requires representation of dynamics at sub-proton scales, but in most cases the system is driven by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) activity at larger scales. The latter requirement challenges available computational resources, which raises the question of how large such a system must be to exhibit MHD traits at large scales while kinetic behavior is accurately represented at small scales. Here we study this implied transition from kinetic to MHD-like behavior using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, initialized using an Orszag–Tang Vortex. The PIC code treats protons, as well as electrons, kinetically, and we address the question of interest by examining several different indicators of MHD-like behavior.

Turbulent dissipation challenge: a community-driven effort

Many naturally occurring and man-made plasmas are collisionless and turbulent. It is not yet well understood how the energy in fields and fluid motions is transferred into the thermal degrees of freedom of constituent particles in such systems. The debate at present primarily concerns proton heating. Multiple possible heating mechanisms have been proposed over the past few decades, including cyclotron damping, Landau damping, heating at intermittent structures and stochastic heating. Recently, a community-driven effort was proposed (Parashar & Salem, 2013, arXiv:1303.0204 ) to bring the community together and understand the relative contributions of these processes under given conditions. In this paper, we propose the first step of this challenge: a set of problems and diagnostics for benchmarking and comparing different types of 2.5D simulations. These comparisons will provide insights into the strengths and limitations of different types of numerical simulations and will help guide subsequent stages of the challenge.

Electron Heating at Kinetic Scales in Magnetosheath Turbulence

We present a statistical study of coherent structures at kinetic scales, using data from the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission in the Earths magnetosheath. We implemented the multi-spacecraft part ...

PROPINQUITY OF CURRENT AND VORTEX STRUCTURES: EFFECTS ON COLLISIONLESS PLASMA HEATING

Intermittency of heating in weakly collisional plasma turbulence is an active subject of research, with significant potential impact on understanding of the solar wind, solar corona and astrophysical plasmas. Recent studies suggest a role of vorticity in plasma heating. In magnetohydrodynamics small scale vorticity is generated near current sheets and this effect persists in kinetic plasma, as demonstrated here with hybrid and fully kinetic Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations. Furthermore, vorticity enhances local kinetic effects, with a generalized resonance condition selecting sign-dependent enhancements or reductions of proton heating and thermal anisotropy. In such plasmas heating is correlated with vorticity and current density, but more strongly with vorticity. These results help explain several prior results that find kinetic effects and energization near to, but not centered on, current sheets. Evidently intermittency in kinetic plasma involves multiple physical quantities, and the associated coherent structures and nonthermal effects are closely related.

The role of electron equation of state in heating partition of protons in a collisionless plasma

One of the outstanding questions related to the solar wind is the heating of solar wind plasma. Addressing this question requires a self consistent treatment of the kinetic physics of a collisionless plasma. A hybrid code (with particle ions and fluid electrons) is one of the most convenient computational tools, which allows us to explore self consistent ion kinetics, while saving us computational time as compared to the full particle in cell codes. A common assumption used in hybrid codes is that of isothermal electrons. In this paper, we discuss the role that the equation of state for electrons could potentially play in determining the ion kinetics.

REVISITING A CLASSIC: THE PARKER–MOFFATT PROBLEM

The interaction of two colliding Alfven wave packets is here described by means of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and hybrid kinetic numerical simulations. The MHD evolution revisits the theoretical insights described by Moffatt, Parker, Kraichnan, Chandrasekhar and Elsasser in which the oppositely propagating large amplitude wave packets interact for a finite time, initiating turbulence. However, the extension to include compressive and kinetic effects, while maintaining the gross characteristics of the simpler classic formulation, also reveals intriguing features which go beyond the pure MHD treatment.