Related papers: A Scale-Separated Approach for Studying Coupled Io…
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.…
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…
Scaling laws for ion temperature gradient driven turbulence in magnetized toroidal plasmas are derived and compared with direct numerical simulations. Predicted dependences of turbulence fluctuation amplitudes, spatial scales, and resulting…
Understanding plasma turbulence requires a synthesis of experiments, observations, theory, and simulations. In the case of kinetic plasmas such as the solar wind, the lack of collisions renders the fluid closures such as viscosity…
Using kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, we simulate reconnection conditions appropriate for the magnetosheath and solar wind, i.e., plasma beta (ratio of gas pressure to magnetic pressure) greater than 1 and low magnetic shear…
Magnetised plasma turbulence can have a multiscale character: instabilities driven by mean temperature gradients drive turbulence at the disparate scales of the ion and the electron gyroradii. Simulations of multiscale turbulence, using…
In this paper, we extend the multiscale approach developed in [Abel et. al., Rep. Prog. Phys., submitted] by exploiting the scale separation between ions and the electrons. The gyrokinetic equation is expanded in powers of the electron to…
Kinetic-range turbulence in magnetized plasmas and, in particular, in the context of solar-wind turbulence has been extensively investigated over the past decades via numerical simulations. Among others, one of the widely adopted reduced…
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…
The equations of electrostatic drift kinetics are observed to possess a symmetry associated with their intrinsic scale invariance. Under the assumptions of spatial periodicity, stationarity, and locality, this symmetry implies a particular…
We demonstrate that the scaling properties of slab ion and electron temperature gradient driven turbulence may be derived by dimensional analysis of a drift kinetic system with one kinetic species. These properties have previously been…
Previously, using an incompressible von K\'arm\'an-Howarth formalism, the behavior of cross-scale energy transfer in magnetic reconnection and turbulence was found to be essentially identical to each other, independent of an external…
We investigate properties of the ion-scale spectral break of solar wind turbulence by means of two-dimensional high-resolution hybrid particle-in-cell simulations. We impose an initial ambient magnetic field perpendicular to the simulation…
Starting from the assumption that saturation of plasma turbulence driven by temperature-gradient instabilities in fusion plasmas is achieved by a local energy cascade between a long-wavelength outer scale, where energy is injected into the…
The vast separation dividing the characteristic times of energy confinement and turbulence in the core of toroidal plasmas makes first-principles prediction on long timescales extremely challenging. Here we report the demonstration of a…
Turbulent transport remains one of the principal obstacles to achieving efficient magnetic confinement in fusion devices. Two of the dominant drivers of the turbulence are microscale instabilities fuelled by electron- and ion-temperature…
To faithfully simulate ITER and other modern fusion devices, one must resolve electron and ion fluctuation scales in a five-dimensional phase space and time. Simultaneously, one must account for the interaction of this turbulence with the…
By means of three dimensional high-resolution hybrid simulations we study the properties of the magnetic field spectral anisotropies near and beyond ion kinetic scales. By using both a Fourier analysis and a local analysis based on…
We investigate properties of plasma turbulence from magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) to sub-ion scales by means of two-dimensional, high-resolution hybrid particle-in-cell simulations. We impose an initial ambient magnetic field, perpendicular to…
We perform a high-resolution two-dimensional fully-kinetic numerical simulation of a turbulent plasma system with observation-driven conditions, in order to investigate the interplay between turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and particle…