General kinetic solution for the Biermann battery with an associated pressure anisotropy generation

Abstract

Fully kinetic analytic calculations of an initially Maxwellian distribution with arbitrary density and temperature gradients exhibit the development of temperature anisotropies and magnetic field growth associated with the Biermann battery. The calculation, performed by taking a small order expansion of the ratio of the Debye length to the gradient scale, predicts anisotropies and magnetic fields as a function of space given an arbitrary temperature and density profile. These predictions are shown to qualitatively match the values measured from particle-in-cell simulations, where the development of the Weibel instability occurs at the same location and with a wavenumber aligned with the predicted temperature anisotropy.

9 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• On the Origin of Cosmic Magnetic Fields
• One-to-one direct modeling of experiments and astrophysical scenarios: pushing the envelope on kinetic plasma simulations

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Anisotropic heating and magnetic field generation due to Raman scattering in laser-plasma interactions
• The effects of collisions on the generation and suppression of temperature anisotropies and the Weibel instability