Ion-scale transition of plasma turbulence: Pressure-strain effect

Abstract

We investigate properties of solar wind-like plasma turbulence using direct numerical simulations. We analyze the transition from large, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) scales to the ion characteristic ones using two-dimensional hybrid (fluid electrons, kinetic ions) simulations. To capture and quantify turbulence properties, we apply the Karman-Howarth-Monin (KHM) equation for compressible Hall MHD (extended by considering the plasma pressure as a tensor quantity) to the numerical results. The KHM analysis indicates that the transition from MHD to ion scales (the so called ion break in the power spectrum) results from a combination of an onset of Hall physics and of an effective dissipation owing to the pressure-strain energy-exchange channel and resistivity. We discuss the simulation results in the context of the solar wind.

7 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Wave turbulence in incompressible Hall MHD
• On the von Karman-Howarth equations for Hall MHD flows
• Plasma beta dependence of the ion-scale spectral break of solar wind turbulence: high-resolution 2D hybrid simulations
• Propinquity of current and vortex structures: effects on collisionless plasma heating
• Anisotropy of third-order structure functions in MHD turbulence
• Exact law for homogeneous compressible Hall magnetohydrodynamics turbulence
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Pressure-Strain Interaction: I. On Compression, Deformation, and Implications For Pi-D
• Pressure-Strain Interaction: II. Decomposition in Magnetic Field-Aligned Coordinates
• Anisotropic electron heating in turbulence-driven magnetic reconnection in the near-Sun solar wind