Analysis and statistics of discontinuities as obtained from 3D simulation of MHD turbulence
- Institute of Space Physics and Applied Techonologies, Department of Geophysics, Peking University (China)
- Institute for Experimental and Applied Physics, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Germany)
The turbulent solar wind abounds with MHD discontinuities, and such discontinuities are often found in close connection with turbulence intermittency, constituting a possible main contributor to the turbulence dissipation and solar wind heating. Among the discontinuities, tangential (TD) and rotational (RD) ones are two most important types. Recently, the connection between turbulence intermittency and proton thermodynamics has been being intensively investigated. Such connections are founded to be involved with MHD instablilities, but the difference of TDs an RDs in this process has not yet been covered. Herewith we define new methods for identifying TDs and RDs obtained from a three-dimensional MHD simulation with pressure anisotropy. Especially, we define the Total Variance of Increments (TVI) as a new measure of magnetic field changes. Based on the identified cases, we compare their occurrence rates and heating effects. More specifically, we find that the thermal states embedding TDs, compared with their RD counterparts, tend to be more associated with extreme plasma parameters or instabilites. Some other possible applications of TVI-like norms are also herewith discussed.
- OSTI ID:
- 22590913
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1720, Issue 1; Conference: SOLAR WIND 14: 14. international solar wind conference, Weihai (China), 22-26 Jun 2015; Other Information: (c) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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