Energy Transfer and Dual Cascade in Kinetic Magnetized Plasma Turbulence
- Department of Physics and IREAP, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 (United States)
The question of how nonlinear interactions redistribute the energy of fluctuations across available degrees of freedom is of fundamental importance in the study of turbulence and transport in magnetized weakly collisional plasmas, ranging from space settings to fusion devices. In this Letter, we present a theory for the dual cascade found in such plasmas, which predicts a range of new behavior that distinguishes this cascade from that of neutral fluid turbulence. These phenomena are explained in terms of the constrained nature of spectral transfer in nonlinear gyrokinetics. Accompanying this theory are the first observations of these phenomena, obtained via direct numerical simulations using the gyrokinetic code AstroGK. The basic mechanisms that are found provide a framework for understanding the turbulent energy transfer that couples scales both locally and nonlocally.
- OSTI ID:
- 21550328
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 16; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.165003; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0031-9007
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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