Related papers: Firehose and Mirror Instabilities in a Collisionle…
Non-Maxwellian metaequilibria can exist in low-collisionality plasmas as evidenced by satellite and laboratory measurements. By including the full pressure tensor dynamics in a fluid plasma model, we show that a sheared velocity field can…
We study the evolution of collisionless plasmas that, due to their macroscopic evolution, are susceptible to the firehose instability, using both analytic theory and hybrid-kinetic particle-in-cell simulations. We establish that, depending…
The magnetorotational instability (MRI) is a crucial mechanism of angular momentum transport in a variety of astrophysical accretion disks. In systems accreting at well below the Eddington rate, such as the central black hole in the Milky…
We report on a first-principles numerical and theoretical study of plasma dynamo in a fully kinetic framework. By applying an external mechanical force to an initially unmagnetized plasma, we develop a self-consistent treatment of the…
Based on now historical magnetic and plasma data and available wave spectra from the AMPTE-IRM spacecraft, and on as well historical Equator-S high-cadence magnetic field observations of mirror modes in the magnetosheath near the dayside…
In situ observations of the solar wind show a limited level of particle temperature anisotropy with respect to the interplanetary magnetic field direction. Kinetic electromagnetic instabilities are efficient to prevent the excessive growth…
Cluster plasmas are magnetised already at very low magnetic field strength. Low collisionality implies that conservation of the first adiabatic invariant results in an anisotropic viscous stress (Braginskii viscosity) or, equivalently,…
We investigate the linear tearing instability in weakly collisional plasmas using a non-ideal gyrotropic-MHD framework, uncovering a previously unknown scaling relation for the instability growth rate in high-$\beta$ environments. Even…
We demonstrate that the universal mode driven by the density gradient in a plasma slab can be absolutely unstable even in the presence of reasonable magnetic shear. Previous studies from the 1970s that reached the opposite conclusion used…
We investigate the inverse cascade of magnetic energy in decaying, collisionless plasmas with moderate to high-$\beta$ values via first-principles numerical simulations and analytical theory. We find that pressure-anisotropy-driven…
The transport of cosmic rays through turbulent astrophysical plasmas still constitutes an open problem. Building on recent progress, we study the combined effect of magnetic mirroring and resonant curvature scattering on parallel and…
We perform fully-kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of an hot plasma that expands radially in a cylindrical geometry. The aim of the paper is to study the consequent development of the electron temperature anisotropy in an expanding…
High-amplitude, chaotic/turbulent electromagnetic fluctuations are ubiquitous in high-energy-density laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, where they can be excited by various kinetic-streaming and/or anisotropy-driven instabilities, such…
In weakly collisional extragalactic plasmas such as the intracluster medium, viscous stress and the rate of change of the magnetic-field strength are proportional to the local pressure anisotropy, so subject to constraints imposed by the…
Using analytical theory and hybrid-kinetic numerical simulations, we demonstrate that, in a collisionless plasma, long-wavelength ion-acoustic waves (IAWs) with amplitudes $\delta n/n_0 \gtrsim 2/\beta$ (where $\beta\gg{1}$ is the ratio of…
The intracluster medium (ICM) is the low-density diffuse magnetized plasma in galaxy clusters, which reaches virial temperatures of up to 10^8 K. Under these conditions, the plasma is weakly collisional and therefore has an anisotropic…
We examine the linear stability analysis of a hot, dilute and differentially rotating plasma by considering anisotropic transport effects. In the dilute plasmas, the ion Larmor radius is small compared with its collisional mean free path.…
We investigate the role of kinetic instabilities driven by a proton anisotropy on the onset of magnetic reconnection by means of 2-D hybrid simulations. The collisionless tearing of a current sheet is studied in the presence of a proton…
Firehose-like instabilities (FIs) are cited in multiple astrophysical applications. Of particular interest are the kinetic manifestations in weakly-collisional or even collisionless plasmas, where these instabilities are expected to…
The magnetorotational instability (MRI) plays a crucial role in regulating the accretion efficiency in astrophysical accretion disks. In low-luminosity disks around black holes, such as Sgr A* and M87, Coulomb collisions are infrequent,…