VARIANCE ANISOTROPY IN KINETIC PLASMAS

Journal Article · Fri Jun 10 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/824/1/44· OSTI ID:22666193

Parashar, Tulasi N.; Matthaeus, William H. ^[1]; Oughton, Sean ^[2]; Wan, Minping ^[3]

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1. University of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States)
2. Department of Mathematics, University of Waikato, Hamilton 3240 (New Zealand)
3. Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, South University of Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055 (China)

Solar wind fluctuations admit well-documented anisotropies of the variance matrix, or polarization, related to the mean magnetic field direction. Typically, one finds a ratio of perpendicular variance to parallel variance of the order of 9:1 for the magnetic field. Here we study the question of whether a kinetic plasma spontaneously generates and sustains parallel variances when initiated with only perpendicular variance. We find that parallel variance grows and saturates at about 5% of the perpendicular variance in a few nonlinear times irrespective of the Reynolds number. For sufficiently large systems (Reynolds numbers) the variance approaches values consistent with the solar wind observations.

• OSTI ID: 22666193
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 824, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ANISOTROPY
FLUCTUATIONS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PLASMA
POLARIZATION
REYNOLDS NUMBER
SOLAR WIND
TURBULENCE