Related papers: Fluidization of collisionless plasma turbulence
To explain energy dissipation via turbulence in collisionless, magnetized plasmas, the existence of a dual real- and velocity-space cascade of ion-entropy fluctuations below the ion gyroradius has been proposed. Such a dual cascade,…
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…
The results obtained by the plasma physics community for the validation and the prediction of turbulence and transport in magnetized plasma come mainly from the use of very CPU-consuming particle-in-cell or (gyro)kinetic codes which…
A dynamical approach, rather than the usual statistical approach, is taken to explore the physical mechanisms underlying the nonlinear transfer of energy, the damping of the turbulent fluctuations, and the development of coherent structures…
Electron plasmas confined by an external magnetic field exhibit variations in a two-dimensional plane orthogonal to the confining magnetic field. A nonlinear fluid simulation code to investigate the properties of 2-D electron plasma wave…
Understanding the nature of compressible fluctuations in a broad range of turbulent plasmas, from the intracluster medium to the solar wind, has been an active field of research in the past decades. Theoretical frameworks for weakly…
We study the long term evolution of magnetic fields generated by a collisionless relativistic $e^+e^-$ shock which is initially unmagnetized. Our 2D particle-in-cell numerical simulations show that downstream of such a Weibel-mediated…
In collisional fluids, a number of key processes rely on the frequency of binary collisions. Collisions seem necessary to generate a shock wave when two fluids collide fast enough, to fulfill the Rankine-Hugoniot relations, to establish an…
The density fluctuation spectrum in the solar wind reveals a Kolmogorov-like scaling with a spectral slope of -5/3 in wavenumber space. The energy transfer process in the magnetized solar wind, characterized typically by MHD turbulence,…
Theoretical approaches to low-frequency magnetized turbulence in collisionless and weakly collisional astrophysical plasmas are reviewed. The proper starting point for an analytical description of these plasmas is kinetic theory, not fluid…
In low-density plasma environments, such as the intracluster medium (ICM), the Larmour frequency is much larger than the ion-ion collision frequency. In such a case, the thermal pressure becomes anisotropic with respect to the magnetic…
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…
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…
We study the physics of electron acceleration at collisionless shocks that move through a plasma containing large-scale magnetic fluctuations. We numerically integrate the trajectories of a large number of electrons, which are treated as…
Magnetic reconnection in strongly magnetized (low-beta), weakly collisional plasmas is investigated using a novel fluid-kinetic model [Zocco & Schekochihin, Phys. Plasmas 18, 102309 (2011)] which retains non-isothermal electron kinetics. It…
Radio-wave scintillation observations reveal a nearly Kolmogorov spectrum of density fluctuations in the ionized interstellar medium. Although this density spectrum is suggestive of turbulence, no theory relevant to its interpretation…
We explore the decay of turbulence and magnetic fields generated by fluctuation dynamo action in the context of galaxy clusters where such a decaying phase can occur in the aftermath of a major merger event. Using idealized numerical…
Recently, particle in cell (PIC) simulations have shown that relativistic turbulence in collisionless plasmas can result in an equilibrium particle distribution function where turbulent heating is balanced by radiative cooling of electrons.…
We attempt to explain the non-thermal emission arising from galaxy clusters as a result of the re-acceleration of electrons by compressible turbulence induced by cluster mergers. In our model intracluster medium (ICM) is represented by a…
Intermittent fluctuations in the boundary of magnetically confined plasmas are investigated by numerical turbulence simulations of a reduced fluid model describing the evolution of the plasma density and electric drift vorticity in the…