Subion Scale Turbulence Driven by Magnetic Reconnection
arXiv:2208.00855 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.205201
Abstract
The interplay between plasma turbulence and magnetic reconnection remains an unsettled question in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. Here we report the first observational evidence that magnetic reconnection drives subion scale turbulence in magnetospheric plasmas by transferring energy to small scales. We employ a spatial coarse-grained model of Hall magnetohydrodynamics, enabling us to measure the nonlinear energy transfer rate across scale at position . Its application to Magnetospheric Multiscale mission data shows that magnetic reconnection drives intense energy transfer to subion scales. This observational evidence is remarkably supported by the results from Hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell simulations of turbulence to which the coarse-grained model is also applied. These results can potentially answer some open questions on plasma turbulence in planetary environments.
References in corpus (29)
- Measurement of the electric fluctuation spectrum of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
- Gyrokinetic Simulations of Solar Wind Turbulence from Ion to Electron Scales
- 3D Turbulent Reconnection: Theory, Tests and Astrophysical Implications
- The Nature of Subproton Scale Turbulence in the Solar Wind
- Energy transfer, pressure tensor and heating of kinetic plasma
- Scaling of the electron dissipation range of solar wind turbulence
- Compressible Turbulence: The Cascade and its Locality
- Magnetic reconnection as a driver for a sub-ion scale cascade in plasma turbulence
- Role of magnetic reconnection in MHD turbulence
- On the Existence of the Kolmogorov Inertial Range in the Terrestrial Magnetosheath Turbulence
- Magnetospheric Multiscale Observations of Electron Vortex Magnetic Hole in the Magnetosheath Turbulent Plasma
- On the von Karman-Howarth equations for Hall MHD flows
- Kinetic Turbulence in the Terrestrial Magnetosheath: Cluster Observations
- Statistics of Reconnection-Driven Turbulence
- Can Hall Magnetohydrodynamics explain plasma turbulence at sub-ion scales?
- Von Karman-Howarth equation for Hall magnetohydrodynamics: Hybrid simulations
- Nature of the MHD and kinetic scale turbulence in the magnetosheath of Saturn: Cassini observations
- Coarse-Grained Incompressible Magnetohydrodynamics: analyzing the turbulent cascades
- Pressure-Strain Interaction as the Energy Dissipation Estimate in Collisionless Plasma
- Coherent structures and spectral energy transfer in turbulent plasma: a space-filter approach
- Three-dimensional Spontaneous Magnetic Reconnection
- Exact law for homogeneous compressible Hall magnetohydrodynamics turbulence
- A Kolmogorov-Like Exact Relation for Compressible Polytropic Turbulence
- Role of reconnection in inertial kinetic-Alfven turbulence
- Magnetic reconnection as an energy cascade process
- General exact law of compressible isentropic magnetohydrodynamic flows: theory and spacecraft observations in the solar wind
- Local cascade and dissipation in incompressible Hall magnetohydrodynamic turbulence: the Coarse-Graining approach
- Exact law for compressible pressure-anisotropic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence: toward linking energy cascade and instabilities
- Space-filter techniques for quasi-neutral hybrid-kinetic models
Cited by in corpus (4)
- Direct observations of cross-scale energy transfer in space plasmas
- Towards Synthetic Magnetic Turbulence with Coherent Structures
- Extended magnetic reconnection in kinetic plasma turbulence
- On the Effect of Driving Turbulent-like Fluctuations on a Harris-Current Sheet Configuration and the Formation of Plasmoids