The inadequacy of a magnetohydrodynamic approach to the Biermann Battery

Abstract

Magnetic fields can be generated in plasmas by the Biermann battery when the electric field produced by the electron pressure gradient has a curl. The commonly employed magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of the Biermann battery breaks down when the electron distribution function is distorted away from Maxwellian. Using both MHD and kinetic simulations of a laser-plasma interaction relevant to inertial confinement fusion we have shown that this distortion can reduce the Biermann-producing electric field by around 50\%. More importantly, the use of a flux limiter in an MHD treatment to deal with the effect of the non-Maxwellian electron distribution on electron thermal transport leads to a completely unphysical prediction of the Biermann-producing electric field and so results in erroneous predictions for the generated magnetic field.

References in corpus (5)

• Testing nonlocal models of electron thermal conduction for magnetic and inertial confinement fusion applications
• Non-local approach to kinetic effects on parallel transport in fluid models of the scrape-off layer
• Interplay between the Weibel instability and the Biermann battery in realistic laser-solid interactions
• Incorporating Kinetic Effects on Nernst Advection in Inertial Fusion Simulations
• The fully kinetic Biermann battery and associated generation of pressure anisotropy

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Momentum Conservation in Current Drive and Alpha-Channeling-Mediated Rotation Drive
• Role of self-generated magnetic fields in the inertial fusion ignition threshold
• Diagnosing Magnetic Fields in Cylindrical Implosions with Oblique Proton Radiography