Kinetic Alfvén turbulence below and above ion-cyclotron frequency

Abstract

Alfvénic turbulent cascade perpendicular and parallel to the background magnetic field is studied accounting for anisotropic dispersive effects and turbulent intermittency. The perpendicular dispersion and intermittency make the perpendicular-wavenumber magnetic spectra steeper and speed up production of high ion-cyclotron frequencies by the turbulent cascade. On the contrary, the parallel dispersion makes the spectra flatter and decelerate the frequency cascade above the ion-cyclotron frequency. Competition of the above factors results in spectral indices distributed in the interval [-2,-3], where -2 is the index of high-frequency space-filling turbulence, and -3 is the index of low-frequency intermittent turbulence formed by tube-like fluctuations. Spectra of fully intermittent turbulence fill a narrower range of spectral indices [-7/3,-3], which almost coincides with the range of indexes measured in the solar wind. This suggests that the kinetic-scale turbulent spectra are shaped mainly by dispersion and intermittency. A small mismatch with measured indexes of about 0.1 can be associated with damping effects not studied here.

arXiv comment9 Pages, 3 Figures, and 2 Tables

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• Kinetic plasma turbulence: recent insights and open questions from 3D3V simulations
• The Ion Transition Range of Solar Wind Turbulence in the Inner Heliosphere: Parker Solar Probe Observations
• MHD-kinetic transition in imbalanced Alfvénic turbulence
• Observational quantification of three-dimensional anisotropies and scalings of space plasma turbulence at kinetic scales
• Tearing instability in Alfvén and kinetic-Alfvén turbulence
• Spectral Diversities of Gamma-ray Bursts in High Energy Bands: Hints from Turbulent Cascade
• Jitter radiation: towards TeV-photons of gamma-ray bursts