Related papers: Sub-grid-scale effects in magnetised plasma turbul…
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…
The interplay between plasma turbulence and magnetic reconnection remains an unsettled question in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. Here we report the first observational evidence that magnetic reconnection drives subion scale…
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…
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…
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…
For a Z-pinch geometry, we report on the nonlinear redistribution of free energy across scales perpendicular to the magnetic guide field, for a turbulent plasma described in the framework of gyrokinetics. The analysis is performed using a…
A coarse-graining framework is implemented to analyze nonlinear processes, measure energy transfer rates and map out the energy pathways from simulated global ocean data. Traditional tools to measure the energy cascade from turbulence…
We formulate a coarse-graining approach to the dynamics of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) fluids at a continuum of length-scales. In this methodology, effective equations are derived for the observable velocity and magnetic fields…
Magnetohydrodynamic turbulence affects both terrestrial and astrophysical plasmas. The properties of magnetized turbulence must be better understood to more accurately characterize these systems. This work presents ideal MHD simulations of…
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…
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…
This work presents a rigorous framework based on coarse-graining to analyze highly compressible turbulence. We show how the requirement that viscous effects on the dynamics of large-scale momentum and kinetic energy be negligible ---an…
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.…
Magnetic reconnection requires, at least locally, a non-ideal plasma response. In collisionless space and astrophysical plasmas, turbulence could permit this instead of the too rare binary collisions. We investigated the influence of…
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…
Turbulence in compressible plasma plays a key role in many areas of astrophysics and engineering. The extreme plasma parameters in these environments, e.g. high Reynolds numbers, supersonic and super-Alfvenic flows, however, make direct…
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…
In this work, we compare gyrokinetic (GK) and fully kinetic Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations of magnetic reconnection in the limit of strong guide field. In particular, we analyze the limits of applicability of the GK plasma model…
The nature of the nonlinear interactions in gyrokinetic (GK) turbulence, driven by an ion-temperature gradient instability, is investigated using numerical simulations of single ion species plasma in three-dimensional flux tube geometry. To…