Dispersive and kinetic effects on kinked Alfvén wave packets: a comparative study with fluid and hybrid models

Abstract

We investigate dispersive and kinetic effects on the evolution of a two-dimensional kinked Alfvén wave packet by comparing results from MHD, Hall-MHD and hybrid simulations of a low-$\beta$ plasma. We find that the Hall term determines the overall evolution of the wave packet over a characteristic time ${\tau }^{\ast }={\tau }_a\ell /d_i$ in both fluid and hybrid models. Dispersion of the wave packet leads to the conversion of the wave energy into internal plasma energy. When kinetic protons are considered, the proton internal energy increase has contributions from both plasma compressions and phase space mixing. The latter occurs in the direction parallel to the guiding mean magnetic field, due to protons resonating at the Alfvén speed with a compressible mode forced by the wave packet. Implications of our results for switchbacks observations and solar wind energetics are discussed.

arXiv commentIn press at PoP for the Special Collection on the Plasma Physics of the Sun in Honor of Eugene Parker

References in corpus (14)

• Switchbacks in the near-Sun magnetic field: long memory and impact on the turbulence cascade
• First in-situ Measurements of Electron Density and Temperature from Quasi-Thermal Noise Spectroscopy with Parker Solar Probe/FIELDS
• In-situ switchback formation in the expanding solar wind
• Switchbacks as signatures of magnetic flux ropes generated by interchange reconnection in the corona
• Shear-Driven Transition to Isotropically Turbulent Solar Wind Outside the Alfven Critical Zone
• Magnetic field kinks and folds in the solar wind
• The Role of Turbulence in Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Expansion
• Ion kinetic energy conservation and magnetic field strength constancy in multi-fluid solar wind Alfvénic turbulence
• Measuring Collisionless Damping in Heliospheric Plasmas using Field-Particle Correlations
• Switchbacks Explained: Super-Parker Fields -- the Other Side of the Sub-Parker Spiral
• Evolution of switchbacks in the inner Heliosphere
• The Radial Evolution of the Solar Wind as Organized by Electron Distribution Parameters
• Three-dimensional simulations of solar wind turbulence with the hybrid code CAMELIA
• Fast Recursive Reconnection and the Hall effect: Hall-MHD Simulations

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Analytic Model and Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Three-dimensional Magnetic Switchbacks
• Axisymmetric hybrid Vlasov equilibria with applications to tokamak plasmas