Magnetorotational Turbulence and Dynamo in a Collisionless Plasma

Abstract

We present results from the first 3D kinetic numerical simulation of magnetorotational turbulence and dynamo, using the local shearing-box model of a collisionless accretion disc. The kinetic magnetorotational instability grows from a subthermal magnetic field having zero net flux over the computational domain to generate self-sustained turbulence and outward angular-momentum transport. Significant Maxwell and Reynolds stresses are accompanied by comparable viscous stresses produced by field-aligned ion pressure anisotropy, which is regulated primarily by the mirror and ion-cyclotron instabilities through particle trapping and pitch-angle scattering. The latter endow the plasma with an effective viscosity that is biased with respect to the magnetic-field direction and spatio-temporally variable. Energy spectra suggest an Alfvén-wave cascade at large scales and a kinetic-Alfvén-wave cascade at small scales, with strong small-scale density fluctuations and weak non-axisymmetric density waves. Ions undergo non-thermal particle acceleration, their distribution accurately described by a kappa distribution. These results have implications for the properties of low-collisionality accretion flows, such as that near the black hole at the Galactic center.

arXiv comment6 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (55)

• Advection-Dominated Accretion: Underfed Black Holes and Neutron Stars
• General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Magnetically Choked Accretion Flows around Black Holes
• Astrophysical gyrokinetics: kinetic and fluid turbulent cascades in magnetized weakly collisional plasmas
• HARM: A Numerical Scheme for General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics
• Simulations of Incompressible MHD Turbulence
• GRMHD Simulations of Magnetized Advection Dominated Accretion on a Non-Spinning Black Hole: Role of Outflows
• Universality of solar wind turbulent spectrum from MHD to electron scales
• Global General Relativistic MHD Simulation of a Tilted Black-Hole Accretion Disk
• Magnetically Driven Accretion Flows in the Kerr Metric I: Models and Overall Structure
• Magnetically Driven Jets in the Kerr Metric
• Radiative Models of Sgr A* from GRMHD Simulations
• Simulations of Magnetized Disks Around Black Holes: Effects of Black Hole Spin, Disk Thickness, and Magnetic Field Geometry
• MHD simulations of the magnetorotational instability in a shearing box with zero net flux. II. The effect of transport coefficients
• Impact of dimensionless numbers on the efficiency of MRI-induced turbulent transport
• Gyrokinetic Simulations of Solar Wind Turbulence from Ion to Electron Scales
• Magnetically Driven Accretion in the Kerr Metric III: Unbound Outflows
• Firehose and Mirror Instabilities in a Collisionless Shearing Plasma
• Turbulence and Particle Heating in Advection-Dominated Accretion Flows
• Direct calculation of the radiative efficiency of an accretion disk around a black hole
• Electron Heating in Hot Accretion Flows
• Empirical Constraints on Proton and Electron Heating in the Fast Solar Wind
• The Nature of Subproton Scale Turbulence in the Solar Wind
• Energy, momentum and mass outflows and feedback from thick accretion discs around rotating black holes
• Shearing Box Simulations of the MRI in a Collisionless Plasma
• Spectrum of Kinetic Alfven Turbulence
• The excitation of spiral density waves through turbulent fluctuations in accretion discs II: Numerical Simulations with MRI driven turbulence
• Dynamic Alignment in Driven Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence
• Magnetically Driven Accretion Flows in the Kerr Metric II: Structure of the Magnetic Field
• Sagittarius A* Accretion Flow and Black Hole Parameters from General Relativistic Dynamical and Polarized Radiative Modeling
• A prescription for the turbulent heating of astrophysical plasmas
• Magnetically Driven Accretion Flows in the Kerr Metric IV: Dynamical Properties of the Inner Disk
• Observational appearance of inefficient accretion flows and jets in 3D GRMHD simulations: Application to Sgr~A*
• The Power of Imaging: Constraining the Plasma Properties of GRMHD Simulations using EHT Observations of Sgr A*
• Plasma diagnostic potential of 2p4f in N${}^{+}$ -- accurate wavelengths and oscillator strengths
• Anisotropy of Alfvénic Turbulence in the Solar Wind and Numerical Simulations
• The Magnetorotational Instability in a Collisionless Plasma
• PIC Simulations of Continuously Driven Mirror and Ion Cyclotron Instabilities in High Beta Astrophysical and Heliospheric Plasmas
• Numerical Measurements of the Spectrum in Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence
• Pegasus: A New Hybrid-Kinetic Particle-in-Cell Code for Astrophysical Plasma Dynamics
• Electron Heating by the Ion Cyclotron Instability in Collisionless Accretion Flows. I. Compression-Driven Instabilities and the Electron Heating Mechanism
• Local 2D Particle-in-cell simulations of the collisionless MRI
• Global GRMHD Simulations of Black Hole Accretion Flows: a Convergence Study
• An Extended Magnetohydrodynamics Model for Relativistic Weakly Collisional Plasmas
• Viscous and Resistive Effects on the MRI with a Net Toroidal Field
• Particle Acceleration during Magnetorotational Instability in a Collisionless Accretion Disk
• Evolution of Accretion Discs around a Kerr Black Hole using Extended Magnetohydrodynamics
• Angular Momentum Transport and Particle Acceleration during Magnetorotational Instability in a Kinetic Accretion Disk
• A model for the non-universal power-law of the solar wind sub-ion scale magnetic spectrum
• Self-consistent spectra from radiative GRMHD simulations of accretion onto Sgr A*
• On the Nature of Magnetic Turbulence in Rotating, Shearing Flows
• Symmetries, scaling laws and convergence in shearing-box simulations of MRI driven turbulence
• Electron Heating by the Ion Cyclotron Instability in Collisionless Accretion Flows. II. Electron Heating Efficiency as a Function of Flow Conditions
• Radiative Models of Sagittarius A* and M87 from Relativistic MHD Simulations
• Linear Instabilities Driven by Differential Rotation in Very Weakly Magnetized Plasmas
• Linear Vlasov Theory in the Shearing Sheet Approximation with Application to the Magneto-Rotational Instability

Cited by in corpus (70)

• First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. V. Testing Astrophysical Models of the Galactic Center Black Hole
• The Event Horizon General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Code Comparison Project
• Dynamo theories
• The interplay of magnetically-dominated turbulence and magnetic reconnection in producing nonthermal particles
• Thermal disequilibration of ions and electrons by collisionless plasma turbulence
• Electron and ion energization in relativistic plasma turbulence
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. IX. Detection of Near-horizon Circular Polarization
• General relativistic magnetohydrodynamical $\kappa$-jet models for Sgr A*
• Fully Kinetic Simulation of 3D Kinetic Alfven Turbulence
• Two-Temperature GRRMHD Simulations of M87
• First-principles demonstration of diffusive-advective particle acceleration in kinetic simulations of relativistic plasma turbulence
• On Kinetic Slow Modes, Fluid Slow Modes, and Pressure-balanced Structures in the Solar Wind
• Corona-Heated Accretion-disk Reprocessing (CHAR): A Physical Model to Decipher the Melody of AGN UV/optical Twinkling
• The Radiative Efficiency and Spectra of Slowly Accreting Black Holes from Two-Temperature GRRMHD Simulations
• Fully kinetic versus reduced-kinetic modelling of collisionless plasma turbulence
• Suppression of electron thermal conduction by whistler turbulence in a sustained thermal gradient
• Magnetoluminescence
• How important is non-ideal physics in simulations of sub-Eddington accretion onto spinning black holes?
• Laboratory Space Physics: Investigating the Physics of Space Plasmas in the Laboratory
• Acceleration and Escape Processes of High-energy Particles in Turbulence inside Hot Accretion Flows
• Kinetic Turbulence in Astrophysical Plasmas: Waves and/or Structures?
• Ion and Electron Acceleration in Fully Kinetic Plasma Turbulence
• Astrophysical gyrokinetics: Turbulence in pressure-anisotropic plasmas at ion scales and beyond
• PIC methods in astrophysics: Simulations of relativistic jets and kinetic physics in astrophysical systems
• Fluctuation Dynamo in a Collisionless, Weakly Magnetized Plasma
• Numerical investigation of kinetic turbulence in relativistic pair plasmas I: Turbulence statistics
• Multi-messenger tests of cosmic-ray acceleration in radiatively inefficient accretion flows
• Soft gamma rays from low accreting supermassive black holes and connection to energetic neutrinos
• Sub-GeV Gamma Rays from Nearby Seyfert Galaxies and Implications for Coronal Neutrino Emission
• MMS Observations of Beta-Dependent Constraints on Ion Temperature-Anisotropy in Earth's Magnetosheath
• Dissipative Magnetohydrodynamics for Non-Resistive Relativistic Plasmas
• Pair Drizzle around Sub-Eddington Supermassive Black Holes
• Particle energization in relativistic plasma turbulence: solenoidal versus compressive driving
• Ion versus electron heating in compressively driven astrophysical gyrokinetic turbulence
• Magnetically Arrested Disks in Quiescent Black-Hole Binaries: Formation Scenario, Observable Signatures, and Potential PeVatrons
• Shearing-box simulations of MRI-driven turbulence in weakly collisional accretion discs
• Turbulence in Magnetized Pair Plasmas
• Particle Diffusion and Acceleration in Magnetorotational Instability Turbulence
• Dynamo Action in a Quasi-Keplerian Taylor-Couette Flow
• Fully kinetic large scale simulations of the collisionless Magnetorotational instability
• Accretion of a Vlasov gas on to a black hole from a sphere of finite radius and the role of angular momentum
• MOCMC: Method of Characteristics Moment Closure, a Numerical Method for Covariant Radiation Magnetohydrodynamics
• Weakly magnetized, Hall dominated plasma Couette flow
• Braginskii viscosity on an unstructured, moving mesh accelerated with super-time-stepping
• Pressure-anisotropy-induced nonlinearities in the kinetic magnetorotational instability
• Cosmic Ray Transport in the Ionized and Neutral ISM: MHD-PIC Simulations and Effective Fluid Treatments
• Conditions for proton temperature anisotropy to drive instabilities in the solar wind
• Probing Plasma Physics with Spectral Index Maps of Accreting Black Holes on Event Horizon Scales
• Energy partition between Alfvénic and compressive fluctuations in magnetorotational turbulence with near-azimuthal mean magnetic field
• Magnetorotational Dynamo Action in the Shearing Box
• A Measurement of the Effective Mean-Free-Path of Solar Wind Protons
• Universal small-scale structure in turbulence driven by magnetorotational instability
• Time Domain Filtering of Resolved Images of Sgr A*
• Impacts of nonthermal emission on the images of a black hole shadow and extended jets in two-temperature GRMHD simulations
• Kinetic Simulations of Imbalanced Turbulence in a Relativistic Plasma: Net Flow and Particle Acceleration
• Magnetohydrodynamics in a Cylindrical Shearing Box
• Axisymmetric, stationary collisionless gas configurations surrounding black holes
• Onset of magnetic reconnection in a collisionless, high-beta plasma
• Spin of the M87 black hole
• Enhanced toroidal flow stabilization of edge localized modes with increased plasma density
• Finite-Larmor-radius equilibrium and currents of the Earth's flank magnetopause
• A Hybrid Gyrokinetic Ion and Isothermal Electron Fluid Code for Astrophysical Plasma
• Calliope: Pseudospectral shearing magnetohydrodynamics code with a pencil decomposition
• Inertial range of magnetorotational turbulence
• First-principles measurement of ion and electron energization in collisionless accretion flow
• A Parallel-Kinetic-Perpendicular-Moment Model for Magnetized Plasmas
• Discrete Symmetries in Dynamo Reversals
• Fully kinetic shearing-box simulations of magnetorotational turbulence in 2D and 3D. I. Pair plasmas
• Nonthermal particle acceleration from maximum entropy in collisionless plasmas
• A conserved thermo-mechanic invariant in extended fluid description of collisionless plasmas