Related papers: Gyrokinetic turbulence: a nonlinear route to dissi…
Electrostatic turbulence in weakly collisional, magnetized plasma can be interpreted as a cascade of entropy in phase space, which is proposed as a universal mechanism for dissipation of energy in magnetized plasma turbulence. When the…
Gyrokinetics is a rich and rewarding playground to study some of the mysteries of modern physics. In this thesis I present work, motivated by the quest for fusion energy, which seeks to uncover some of the inner workings of turbulence in…
We present a theoretical framework for plasma turbulence in astrophysical plasmas (solar wind, interstellar medium, galaxy clusters, accretion disks). The key assumptions are that the turbulence is anisotropic with respect to the mean…
The transfer of turbulent energy through an inertial range from the driving scale to dissipative scales in a kinetic plasma followed by the conversion of this energy into heat is a fundamental plasma physics process. A theoretical…
The question of how nonlinear interactions redistribute the energy of fluctuations across available degrees of freedom is of fundamental importance in the study of turbulence and transport in magnetized weakly collisional plasmas, ranging…
Nonlinear 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…
Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence is encountered in a wide variety of astrophysical plasmas, including accretion disks, the solar wind, and the interstellar and intracluster medium. On small scales, this turbulence is often expected to…
Predicting the dynamics of a thermonuclear plasma during a magnetic confinement experiment is fundamental in order to make nuclear fusion a reliable source of energy. The development of a set of equations describing the plasma evolution on…
This paper studies the turbulent cascade of magnetic energy in weakly collisional magnetized plasmas. A cascade model is presented, based on the assumptions of local nonlinear energy transfer in wavenumber space, critical balance between…
Determining the physical mechanisms that extract energy from turbulent fluctuations in weakly collisional magnetized plasmas is necessary for a more complete characterization of the behavior of a variety of space and astrophysical plasmas.…
The weak collisionality typical of turbulence in many diffuse astrophysical plasmas invalidates an MHD description of the turbulent dynamics, motivating the development of a more comprehensive theory of kinetic turbulence. In particular, a…
In gyrokinetic theory, the quadratic nonlinearity is known to play an important role in the dynamics by redistributing (in a conservative fashion) the free energy between the various active scales. In the present study, the free energy…
A refined cascade model for kinetic turbulence in weakly collisional astrophysical plasmas is presented that includes both the transition between weak and strong turbulence and the effect of nonlocal interactions on the nonlinear transfer…
Using large resolution numerical simulations of GK turbulence, spanning an interval ranging from the end of the fluid scales to the electron gyroradius, we study the energy transfers in the perpendicular direction for a proton-electron…
The first three-dimensional, nonlinear gyrokinetic simulation of plasma turbulence resolving scales from the ion to electron gyroradius with a realistic mass ratio is presented, where all damping is provided by resolved physical mechanisms.…
Zonal flows and turbulence spreading play important roles in magnetic fusion plasma confinement, yet their coupling mechanisms remain elusive. Using global nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations, we show that turbulence spreading transports…
In magnetized plasma turbulence, the couplings of perpendicular spatial scales that arise due to the nonlinear interactions are analyzed from the perspective of the free-energy exchanges. The plasmas considered here, with appropriate ion or…
A set of equations is derived describing the macroscopic transport of particles and energy in a thermonuclear plasma on the energy confinement time. The equations thus derived allow studying collisional and turbulent transport…
In this work, we present first-of-their-kind nonlinear local gyrokinetic simulations of electromagnetic turbulence at mid-radius in the burning plasma phase of the conceptual high-$\beta$, reactor-scale, tight-aspect-ratio tokamak STEP…
Two-dimensional electrostatic turbulence in magnetized weakly-collisional plasmas exhibits a cascade of entropy in phase space [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 015003 (2009)]. At scales smaller than the gyroradius, this cascade is characterized by…