The effects of collisions on the generation and suppression of temperature anisotropies and the Weibel instability
arXiv:2004.13365 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.033233
Abstract
The expansion of plasma with non-parallel temperature and density gradients, and the generation of magnetic field via the Biermann battery is modeled using particle-in-cell simulations that include collisional effects via Monte Carlo methods. A scaling of the degree of collisionality shows that an anisotropy can be produced, and drive the Weibel instability, for gradient scales shorter than the mean free path. For larger collision rates, the Biermann battery dominates as the cause of magnetic field generation. When the most energetic particles remain collisionless, the Nernst effect causes the Biermann field to be dragged with the heat flux, piled up, and enhanced.
6 pages, 4 figures
References in corpus (5)
- On the Origin of Cosmic Magnetic Fields
- One-to-one direct modeling of experiments and astrophysical scenarios: pushing the envelope on kinetic plasma simulations
- Statistical kinetic treatment of relativistic binary collisions
- Efficient modeling of laser plasma interactions in high energy density scenarios
- General kinetic solution for the Biermann battery with an associated pressure anisotropy generation