Related papers: Fluctuation Dynamo in a Collisionless, Weakly Magn…
Weakly-collisional plasmas, such as the solar wind or the intra-cluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters, evolve in the presence of dynamically strong magnetic fields. The turbulent dynamo can amplify magnetic fields to such levels by…
Weakly collisional plasmas dynamically develop pressure anisotropies with respect to the magnetic field. These anisotropies trigger plasma instabilities at scales just above the ion Larmor radius \rho_i and much below the mean free path…
In this work we report a numerical study of the cosmic magnetic field amplification due to collisionless plasma instabilities. The collisionless magnetohydrodynamic equations derived account for the pressure anisotropy that leads, in…
Pressure anisotropy can strongly influence the dynamics of weakly collisional, high-beta plasmas, but its effects are missed by standard magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). Small changes to the magnetic-field strength generate large…
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 study the dynamics of magnetic fields in chiral magnetohydrodynamics, which takes into account the effects of an additional electric current related to the chiral magnetic effect in high energy plasmas. We perform direct numerical…
We study the linear stability of weakly magnetized differentially rotating plasmas in both collisionless kinetic theory and Braginskii's theory of collisional, magnetized plasmas. We focus on the very weakly magnetized limit that is…
In turbulent high-beta astrophysical plasmas (exemplified by the galaxy cluster plasmas), pressure-anisotropy-driven firehose and mirror fluctuations grow nonlinearly to large amplitudes, dB/B ~ 1, on a timescale comparable to the turnover…
Magnetic fields pervade the entire Universe and affect the formation and evolution of astrophysical systems from cosmological to planetary scales. The generation and dynamical amplification of extragalactic magnetic fields through cosmic…
Magnetic fields in several astrophysical objects are amplified and maintained by a dynamo mechanism, which is the conversion of the turbulent kinetic energy to magnetic energy. A dynamo that amplifies magnetic fields at scales $<$ the…
Among the fundamental and most challenging problems of laboratory, space, and astrophysical plasma physics is to understand the relaxation processes of nearly collisionless plasmas toward quasi-stationary states; and the resultant states of…
The standard magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) description of the plasma in the hot, magnetized gas of the intra-cluster (ICM) medium is not adequate because it is weakly collisional. In such collisionless magnetized gas, the microscopic velocity…
The magnetic field in Hall plasmas is frozen in the electron component and is advected not only with the plasma motion but also with the electrical current flow. Its coupling with the plasma may be not as strong as characteristic of the MHD…
In a collisionless, magnetized plasma, particles may stream freely along magnetic-field lines, leading to phase "mixing" of their distribution function and consequently to smoothing out of any "compressive" fluctuations (of density,…
The growth and saturation of magnetic field in conducting turbulent media with large magnetic Prandtl numbers are investigated. This regime is very common in low-density hot astrophysical plasmas. During the early (kinematic) stage, weak…
In dilute astrophysical plasmas, the collisional mean free path of a particle can exceed its Larmor radius. Under these conditions, the thermal conductivity and viscosity of the plasma can be dramatically altered. This alteration allows…
We show that under very general conditions, cluster plasmas threaded by weak magnetic fields are subject to very fast growing plasma instabilities driven by the anisotropy of the plasma pressure (viscous stress) with respect to the local…
When the ion mean free path much exceeds the Larmor radius in a plasma, the viscous stress tensor is altered dramatically, and depends only upon quantities measured along the field lines. This regime corresponds to typical interstellar…
Upper bounds are derived on the amount of magnetic energy that can be generated by dynamo action in collisional and collisionless plasmas with and without external forcing. A hierarchy of mathematical descriptions is considered for the…
Plasma in the terrestrial magnetosheath is characterised by very weak particle-particle collisions, so kinetic microinstabilities are thought to be responsible for regulating the thermodynamics of the plasma. By exciting electromagnetic…