Role of the Plasmoid Instability in Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence

Dong, Chuanfei; Wang, Liang; Huang, Yi -Min; Comisso, Luca; Bhattacharjee, Amitava

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.165101

Title: Role of the Plasmoid Instability in Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence

Journal Article · Wed Oct 17 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.165101· OSTI ID:1484228

Dong, Chuanfei ^[1]; Wang, Liang ^[1]; Huang, Yi -Min ^[1]; Comisso, Luca ^[2]; Bhattacharjee, Amitava ^[1]

Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (United States). Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences and Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.
Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (United States). Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences and Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.; Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). Dept. of Astronomy and Columbia Astrophysics Lab.

The plasmoid instability in evolving current sheets has been widely studied due to its effects on the disruption of current sheets, the formation of plasmoids, and the resultant fast magnetic reconnection. In this Letter, we study the role of the plasmoid instability in two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence by means of high-resolution direct numerical simulations. At a sufficiently large magnetic Reynolds number (R_m = 10⁶), the combined effects of dynamic alignment and turbulent intermittency lead to a copious formation of plasmoids in a multitude of intense current sheets. The disruption of current sheet structures facilitates the energy cascade towards small scales, leading to the breaking and steepening of the energy spectrum. In the plasmoid-mediated regime, the energy spectrum displays a scaling that is close to the spectral index –2.2 as proposed by recent analytic theories. In conclusion, we also demonstrate that the scale-dependent dynamic alignment exists in 2D MHD turbulence and the corresponding slope of the alignment angle is close to 0.25.

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Research Organization:: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States); Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AGS-1338944; AGS-1460169; PHY-1229408; SC0016470; SC0006670; NNX13AK31G

OSTI ID:: 1484228

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1478600; OSTI ID: 1604343

Journal Information:: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 16; ISSN 0031-9007

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 54 works

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