Spectral breaks of Alfvenic turbulence in a collisionless plasma

Abstract

Recent observations reveal that magnetic turbulence in the nearly colisionless solar wind plasma extends to scales smaller than the plasma microscales, such as ion gyroradius and ion inertial length. Measured breaks in the spectra of magnetic and density fluctuations at high frequencies are thought to be related to the transition from large-scale hydromagnetic to small-scale kinetic turbulence. The scales of such transitions and the responsible physical mechanisms are not well understood however. In the present work we emphasize the crucial role of the plasma parameters in the transition to kinetic turbulence, such as the ion and electron plasma beta, the electron to ion temperature ratio, the degree of obliquity of turbulent fluctuations. We then propose an explanation for the spectral breaks reported in recent observations.

9 pages, 7 figures. A few typos found in the published version are corrected

References in corpus (3)

• Whistler Wave Cascade in Solar Wind Plasma
• Weakly Turbulent MHD Waves in Compressible Low-Beta Plasmas
• The Turbulent Heating Rate in Strong MHD Turbulence with Nonzero Cross Helicity

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• MHD-kinetic transition in imbalanced Alfvénic turbulence
• Stability of superthermal strahl electrons in the solar wind
• Dissipation scale lengths of density turbulence in the inner solar wind
• Electron-Scale Current Sheets and Energy Dissipation in 3D Kinetic-Scale Plasma Turbulence with Low Electron Beta
• Electron inertia effects in 3D hybrid-kinetic collisionless plasma turbulence
• Hall MHD waves: A fundamental departure from their MHD counterparts