Nonlinear saturation of trapped electron modes via perpendicular particle diffusion

In magnetized fusion plasmas, trapped electron mode (TEM) turbulence constitutes, together with ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence, the dominant source of anomalous transport on ion scales. While ITG modes are known to saturate via nonlinear zonal flow generation, this mechanism is shown to be of little importance for TEM turbulence in the parameter regime explored here. Instead, a careful analysis of the statistical properties of the ExB nonlinearity in the context of gyrokinetic turbulence simulations reveals that perpendicular particle diffusion is the dominant saturation mechanism. These findings allow for the construction of a rather realistic quasilinear model of TEM induced transport.     

Free energy cascade in gyrokinetic turbulence

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 transfer is analyzed for the case of ion temperature gradient driven turbulence. It is shown that it shares many properties with the energy transfer in fluid turbulence. In particular, one finds a (strongly) local, forward (from large to small scales) cascade of free energy in the plane perpendicular to the background magnetic field. These findings shed light on some fundamental properties of plasma turbulence, and encourage the development of large-eddy-simulation techniques for gyrokinetics.     

Exponential frequency spectrum in magnetized plasmas

Measurements of a magnetized plasma with a controlled electron temperature gradient show the development of a broadband spectrum of density and temperature fluctuations having an exponential frequency dependence at frequencies below the ion cyclotron frequency. The origin of the exponential frequency behavior is traced to temporal pulses of Lorentzian shape. Similar exponential frequency spectra are also found in limiter-edge plasma turbulence associated with blob transport. This finding suggests a universal feature of magnetized plasma turbulence leading to nondiffusive, cross-field transport, namely, the presence of Lorentzian shaped pulses.     

低频Alfvén波对等离子体非共振加热与随机加热的粒子模拟

采用粒子模拟方法,研究沿背景磁场方向传播的低频Alfvén波对磁化等离子体加热的物理过程.模拟结果表明:离子在垂直和平行于背景磁场的方向都得到明显的加热,在非共振加热阶段,垂直方向比平行方向的加热效果更加显著,形成温度各向异性;在随机加热阶段,垂直和平行方向的温度最终达到饱和且趋于一致.加热过程中,离子所获得动力学温度的最大值由外加磁场能量密度与等离子体密度的比值决定,与Alfvén波的频率及振幅无关;离子在平行于背景磁场方向上被加速,并最终获得相当于Alfvén波相速度大小的流速.     

Dynamic alignment in driven magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

Motivated by recent analytic predictions, we report numerical evidence showing that in driven incompressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence the magnetic- and velocity-field fluctuations locally tend to align the directions of their polarizations. This dynamic alignment is stronger at smaller scales with the angular mismatch between the polarizations decreasing with the scale lambda approximately as theta(lambda) is proportional to lambda(1/4). This can naturally lead to a weakening of the nonlinear interactions and provide an explanation for the energy spectrum E(k) is proportional to k(-3/2) that is observed in numerical experiments of strongly magnetized turbulence.     

Transient vortex structures in low frequency magnetized plasma turbulence

The nonlinear transient state of drift vortices often observed in computer simulations and experiments on low frequency magnetized plasma turbulence has been investigated. The essential problem is studied by considering a model in which a vortex is embedded in a strained perpendicular and parallel flow. In the axisymmetric limit the diffusion equation is solved exactly to display vortex generation, stretching and dissipation. In the nonaxisymmetric case, a perturbative solution is obtained which displays essentially the same features.     

Energy spectra stemming from interactions of Alfvén waves and turbulent eddies

We present a numerical analysis of an incompressible decaying magnetohydrodynamic turbulence run on a grid of 1536{3} points. The Taylor Reynolds number at the maximum of dissipation is approximately 1100, and the initial condition is a superposition of large-scale Arn'old-Beltrami-Childress flows and random noise at small scales, with no uniform magnetic field. The initial kinetic and magnetic energies are equal, with negligible correlation. The resulting energy spectrum is a combination of two components, each moderately resolved. Isotropy obtains in the large scales, with a spectral law compatible with the Iroshnikov-Kraichnan theory stemming from the weakening of nonlinear interactions due to Alfvén waves; scaling of structure functions confirms the non-Kolmogorovian nature of the flow in this range. At small scales, weak turbulence emerges with a k{perpendicular}{-2} spectrum, the perpendicular direction referring to the local quasiuniform magnetic field.     

Analysis and compression of six-dimensional gyrokinetic datasets using higher order singular value decomposition

Higher order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) is explored as a tool for analyzing and compressing gyrokinetic data. An efficient numerical implementation of an HOSVD algorithm is described. HOSVD is used to analyze the full six-dimensional (three spatial, two velocity space, and time dimensions) gyrocenter distribution function from gyrokinetic simulations of ion temperature gradient, electron temperature gradient, and trapped electron mode driven turbulence. The HOSVD eigenvalues for the velocity space coordinates decay very rapidly, indicating that only a few structures in velocity space can capture the most important dynamics. In almost all of the cases studied, HOSVD extracts parallel velocity space structures which are very similar to orthogonal polynomials. HOSVD is also used to compress gyrokinetic datasets, an application in which it is shown to significantly outperform the more commonly used singular value decomposition. It is shown that the effectiveness of the HOSVD compression improves as the dimensionality of the dataset increases.     

Scalar flux in a uniform mean scalar gradient in homogeneous isotropic steady turbulence

Statistics of a passive scalar flux in a uniform mean scalar gradient convected by homogeneous isotropic steady turbulence are numerically studied by using very high resolution direct numerical simulation. It is found that the Nusselt number increases in proportion to the Péclet number and that the one point probability density function of the scalar flux is negatively skewed and exponential, and is insensitive to the variation of the Péclet number. The scalar field is studied by visualization, and the ramp-cliff structure and the mesa-canyon structure are observed along the directions parallel and perpendicular to the mean scalar gradient, respectively. The probability density function of the scalar flux is theoretically computed and found to be in good agreement with the numerical results. A Lagrangian statistical theory for the scalar flux is developed, which predicts that the scalar transfer flux is given by the time integral of the Lagrangian velocity autocorrelation and increases in proportion to the Péclet number, which is consistent with the results of the direct numerical simulation. A physical explanation of the asymmetry of the scalar flux PDF is explored.     

Effect of Hall current on the velocity and temperature distributions of Couette flow with variable properties

The unsteady hydromagnetic Couette flow and heat transfer between two parallel porous plates is studied with the Hall effect and temperature dependent properties. The fluid is acted upon by a constant pressure gradient and an external uniform magnetic field as well as uniform suction and injection applied perpendicular to the parallel plates. A numerical solution for the governing non-linear equations of motion and the energy equation are obtained. The effect of the Hall term and the temperature-dependent viscosity and thermal conductivity on both velocity and temperature distributions is examined.     

Parallelization in time of numerical simulations of fully-developed plasma turbulence using the parareal algorithm

It is shown that numerical simulations of fully-developed plasma turbulence can be successfully parallelized in time using the parareal algorithm. The result is far from trivial, and even unexpected, since the exponential divergence of Lagrangian trajectories as well as the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions characteristic of turbulence set these type of simulations apart from the much simpler systems to which the parareal algorithm has been applied to this day. It is also shown that the parallel gain obtainable with this method is very promising (close to an order of magnitude for the cases and implementations described), even when it scales with the number of processors quite differently to what is typical for spatial parallelization.     

Cross-scale effects in solar-wind turbulence

The understanding of the small-scale termination of the turbulent energy cascade in collisionless plasmas is nowadays one of the outstanding problems in space physics. In the absence of collisional viscosity, the dynamics at small scales is presumably kinetic in nature; the identification of the physical mechanism which replaces energy dissipation and establishes the link between macroscopic and microscopic scales would open a new scenario in the study of turbulent heating in space plasmas. We present a numerical analysis of kinetic effects along the turbulent energy cascade in solar-wind plasmas which provides an effective unified interpretation of a wide set of spacecraft observations and shows that, simultaneously with an increase in the ion perpendicular temperature, strong bursts of electrostatic activity in the form of ion-acoustic turbulence are produced together with accelerated beams in the ion distribution function.     

Decaying turbulence: What happens when the correlation length varies spatially in two adjacent zones

We have imagined a numerical experiment to explore the onset of turbulent intermittency associated with a spatial perturbation of the correlation length. We place two isotropic regions, with different integral scales, inside a volume where the turbulent kinetic energy is initially uniform and leave them to interact and evolve in time. The different length scales produce different decay rates in the two regions. Since the smaller-scale region decays faster, a transient turbulent energy gradient is generated at the interface between the two regions. The transient is characterized by three phases in which the kinetic energy gradient across the interface grows, peaks and then slowly decays. The transient lifetime is almost proportional to the initial ratio of the correlation lengths. The direct numerical simulations also show that the interface width grows in time. The velocity moments inside this interaction zone are seen to depart from their initial isotropic values and, with a certain lag, the anisotropy is seen to spread to small scales. The longitudinal derivative moments also become anisotropic after a few eddy turnover times. This anisotropic behaviour is different from that observed in sheared homogeneous turbulent flows, where high transverse derivative moments are generated, but longitudinal moments almost maintain the isotropic turbulence values. Apart from the behaviour of the energy gradient transients, the results also show the timescaling of the interface diffusion width, and data on the anisotropy of the large and small scales, observed through one-point statistics determined inside the intermittency sublayer, which is associated with the interaction zone.     

Energy transfer and dual cascade in kinetic magnetized plasma turbulence

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 from space settings to fusion devices. In this Letter, we present a theory for the dual cascade found in such plasmas, which predicts a range of new behavior that distinguishes this cascade from that of neutral fluid turbulence. These phenomena are explained in terms of the constrained nature of spectral transfer in nonlinear gyrokinetics. Accompanying this theory are the first observations of these phenomena, obtained via direct numerical simulations using the gyrokinetic code AstroGK. The basic mechanisms that are found provide a framework for understanding the turbulent energy transfer that couples scales both locally and nonlocally.     

Energy decay laws in strongly anisotropic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

We investigate the influence of a uniform magnetic field B(0)=B(0)e( parallel) on energy decay laws in incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. The nonlinear transfer reduction along B(0) is included in a model that distinguishes parallel and perpendicular directions, following a phenomenology of Kraichnan. We predict a slowing down of the energy decay due to anisotropy in the limit of strong B(0), with distinct power laws for energy decay of shear- and pseudo-Alfvén waves. Numerical results from the kinetic equations of Alfvén wave turbulence recover these predictions, and MHD numerical results clearly tend to follow them in the lowest perpendicular planes.     

THE CROSS-FIELD STREAMING INSTABILITY WITH ANISOTROPIC TEMPERATURE

A general dispersion relation is derived.for the plasma with unmaqnetized ions and magnetized electrons with anisotropic temperature.Numerical results are presented for the case in which the relative electron-ion cross-field velocity exceeds greatly the Alfven speed of the plasma.The threshold of the instability becomes lower when the ratio of the parallel electron temperature to the perpendicular one increases slightly about unity.The peak growth rates can be considerably larger for the anisotropic temperature.     

Frequency upshifting by an ionization front in a magnetized plasma

The interaction of a light wave with a relativistic ionization front in the presence of an applied DC magnetic field which is perpendicular or parallel to the incident wave is considered. In both cases, four transmitted modes are generated in the magnetized plasma by an incident linearly polarized wave. The frequency upshifts of the various modes are calculated and compared to the unmagnetized case. The corresponding reflection and transmission coefficients are also obtained. Finally, the density ripple associated with the free streaming mode in a magnetized plasma for the perpendicular case is discussed     

FDTD Analysis of Electromagnetic Reflection by Conductive Plane Covered with Magnetized Inhomogeneous Plasmas

A novel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methodology which incorporates both anisotropy and frequency dispersion at the same time is developed for electromagnetic wave propagation in anisotropic magnetoactive plasmas in this paper. The numerical verification of the method are confirmed by computing the reflection and transmission of right-handed/left-handed circularly polarized (RCP/LCP) wave through a magnetized plasma layer, with the direction of propagation parallel to the direction of the biasing field. And, the right-handed / left-handed polarized wave reflection coefficients for electromagnetic signals normally incident upon a conductive plane covered with a layer of magnetized plasma are computed using the new FDTD method. The parabolic electron-number density profile varies only in the direction perpendicular to the plane. The function dependence of reflection coefficients on the number density, collision frequency and external magnetic field is studied.     

磁化非均匀等离子体中模转换机制对电磁波吸收的数值研究

用数值方法研究磁化非均匀等离子体(磁场与密度梯度垂直)中模转换机制对p极化电磁波的吸收效应,重点考虑磁场对吸收率的影响,结果表明:与非磁化等离子体相比,磁场的加入使得吸收率曲线相对入射角的分布发生小的偏移,吸收率为零的位置不是发生在零度入射(即垂直入射)时.而是在一个负的入射角位置,垂直入射时有不为零的吸收率,且正角度范围与负角度范围的峰值吸收率不相等,磁场提高了正入射角范围内的峰值吸收率而降低了负角度范围内的峰值吸收率(或反过来,这取决于磁场方向).     

Ultra-low-frequency dust-electromagnetic modes in self-gravitating magnetized dusty plasmas

Obliquely propagating altra-low-frequency dust-electromagnetic waves in a self-gravitating, warm, magnetized, two fluid dusty plasma system have been investigated. Two special cases, namely, dust-Alfvén mode propagating parallel to the external magnetic field and dustmagnetosonic mode propagating perpendicular to the external magnetic field have also been considered. It has been shown that effects of self-gravitational field, dust fluid temperature, and obliqueness significantly modify the dispersion properties of these ultra-low-frequency dust-electromagnetic modes. It is also found that in parallel propagating dust-Alfvén mode these effects play no role, but in obliquely propagating dust-Alfvén mode or perpendicular propagating dust-magnetosonic mode the effect of self-gravitational field plays destabilizing role whereas the effect of dust/ion fluid temperature plays stabilizing role.