Related papers: Upper bounds on gyrokinetic instabilities
A fundamental problem of forced magnetic reconnection has been solved taking into account the plasmoid instability of thin reconnecting current sheets. In this problem, the reconnection is driven by a small amplitude boundary perturbation…
Axisymmetric ($m=0$) gyrokinetic and extended-MHD simulations of sheared-flow Z-pinch plasma are performed with the high-order finite volume code COGENT. The present gyrokinetic model solves the long-wavelength limit of the gyrokinetic…
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…
Plasmas are beset with instabilities of all types, hydrodynamic, magneto-hydrodynamic, and electromagnetic. These instabilities are complex, occur over a large range of temporal and spatial scales, are most often unmanageable, and have…
We present bounds on the Higgs mass in the Standard Model and in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model using the effective potential with next-to-leading logarithms resummed by the renormalization group equations, and physical (pole)…
Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities can play an important role in the dynamics of the pulsar magnetosphere and can be responsible for the formation of various structures. We consider the instability caused by a gradient of the magnetic…
Stability conditions of magnetized plasma flows are obtained by exploiting the Hamiltonian structure of the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations and, in particular, by using three kinds of energy principles. First, the Lagrangian variable…
Slow dynamical changes in magnetic-field strength and invariance of the particles' magnetic moments generate ubiquitous pressure anisotropies in weakly collisional, magnetized astrophysical plasmas. This renders them unstable to fast,…
We study the long term evolution of magnetic fields generated by an initially unmagnetized collisionless relativistic $e^+e^-$ shock. Our 2D particle-in-cell numerical simulations show that downstream of such a Weibel-mediated shock,…
The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is a ubiquitous physical process in ordinary fluids and plasmas, frequently observed also in space environments. In this paper, kinetic effects at proton scales in the nonlinear and turbulent stage of the…
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…
Microinstabilities drive turbulent fluctuations in inhomogeneous, magnetized plasmas. In the context of magnetic confinement fusion devices, this leads to an enhanced transport of particles, momentum, and energy, thereby degrading…
This paper presents a complete theoretical framework for plasma turbulence and transport in tokamak plasmas. The fundamental scale separations present in plasma turbulence are codified as an asymptotic expansion in the ratio of the…
The variational principle for linear stability of three-dimensional, inhomogenious, compressible, moving magnetized plasma is suggested. The principle is ``softer'' (easier to be satisfied) than all previously known variational stability…
Using two-dimensional simulations, we numerically explore the dependences of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability upon various physical parameters, including viscosity, width of sheared layer, flow speed, and magnetic field strength. In most cases,…
In low-collisionality plasmas, anisotropic heat conduction due to a magnetic field leads to buoyancy instabilities for any nonzero temperature gradient. We study analogous instabilities in degenerate {\it collisional} plasmas, i.e., when…
Buneman instability is often driven in magnetic reconnection. Understanding how velocity shear in the beams driving the Buneman instability affects the growth and saturation of waves is relevant to turbulence, heating, and diffusion in…
We study the role of QCD plasma instabilities in non-equilibrium quark-gluon plasmas. First, we argue that such instabilities must drastically modify the "bottom-up" thermalization scenario for heavy-ion collisions. Second, we discuss…
Supersonic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence is a ubiquitous state for many astrophysical plasmas. However, even the basic statistics for this type of turbulence remains uncertain. We present results from supersonic MHD turbulence…
A gyrokinetic linear stability analysis of a collisionless slab geometry in the local approximation is presented. We focus on $k_\parallel=0$ universal (or entropy) modes driven by plasma gradients at small and large plasma $\beta$. These…