Revisiting a classic: the Parker-Moffatt problem

Abstract

The interaction of two colliding Alfvén wave packets is here described by means of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and hybrid kinetic numerical simulations. The MHD evolution revisits the theoretical insights described by Moffatt, Parker, Kraichnan, Chandrasekhar and Elsässer in which the oppositely propagating large amplitude wave packets interact for a finite time, initiating turbulence. However, the extension to include compressive and kinetic effects, while maintaining the gross characteristics of the simpler classic formulation, also reveals intriguing features which go beyond the pure MHD treatment.

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Cited by in corpus (21)

• Fully kinetic versus reduced-kinetic modelling of collisionless plasma turbulence
• Critical Balance and the Physics of MHD Turbulence
• Velocity-Space Cascade in Magnetized Plasmas: Numerical Simulations
• Local energy transfer rate and kinetic processes: the fate of turbulent energy in two-dimensional Hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell numerical simulations
• Colliding Alfvénic wave packets in MHD, Hall and kinetic simulations
• Three-dimensional modelling of the shock-turbulence interaction
• ViDA: a Vlasov-DArwin solver for plasma physics at electron scales
• Fluid simulations of plasma turbulence at ion scales: comparison with Vlasov-Maxwell simulations
• Proton-proton collisions in the turbulent solar wind: Hybrid Boltzmann-Maxwell simulations
• Nonlinear energy transfer and current sheet development in localized Alfven wavepacket collisions in the strong turbulence limit
• Solar wind collisional heating
• Exact hybrid-Vlasov equilibria for sheared plasmas with in-plane and out-of-plane magnetic field
• Kinetic Alfvén wave generation by velocity shear in collisionless plasmas
• Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at proton scales with an exact kinetic equilibrium
• Turbulence and particle energization in twisted flux ropes in solar-wind conditions
• Kinetic features for the identification of Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices in \textit{in situ} observations
• Exact hybrid-kinetic equilibria for magnetized plasmas with shearing flows
• Particle acceleration by sub-proton cyclotron frequency spectrum of dispersive Alfven waves in inhomogeneous solar coronal plasmas
• Kinetic heating by Alfvén waves in magnetic shears
• Transport of electrons in tangled magnetic fields
• Current sheets, plasmoids and flux ropes in the heliosphere. Part II: Theoretical aspects