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Title: Dissipation measures in weakly collisional plasmas

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6]; ORCiD logo [7]; ORCiD logo [8]; ORCiD logo [9]; ORCiD logo [10]; ORCiD logo [11]
  1. Gran Sasso Science Institute, Viale F. Crispi 7, I-67100 L’Aquila, Italy, INFN/Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, I-67100 Assergi (AQ), Italy, Istituto per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Plasmi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via Amendola 122/D, I-70126 Bari, Italy
  2. Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA
  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 54224, USA
  4. Department of Physics and Astronomy and Center for KINETIC Plasma Physics, West Virginia University, WV 26506, USA
  5. Departamento de Física, Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ladrón de Guevara E11-253, 170525 Quito, Ecuador
  6. Istituto per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Plasmi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via Amendola 122/D, I-70126 Bari, Italy, Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Ångström Laboratory, Lägerhyddsvägen 1, SE-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden
  7. ASI – Italian Space Agency, via del Politecnico snc, I-00133 Rome, Italy
  8. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università della Calabria, I-87036 Rende (CS), Italy
  9. Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO 80301, USA
  10. Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
  11. Bartol Research Institute and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA

ABSTRACT The physical foundations of the dissipation of energy and the associated heating in weakly collisional plasmas are poorly understood. Here, we compare and contrast several measures that have been used to characterize energy dissipation and kinetic-scale conversion in plasmas by means of a suite of kinetic numerical simulations describing both magnetic reconnection and decaying plasma turbulence. We adopt three different numerical codes that can also include interparticle collisions: the fully kinetic particle-in-cell vpic, the fully kinetic continuum Gkeyll, and the Eulerian Hybrid Vlasov–Maxwell (HVM) code. We differentiate between (i) four energy-based parameters, whose definition is related to energy transfer in a fluid description of a plasma, and (ii) four distribution function-based parameters, requiring knowledge of the particle velocity distribution function. There is an overall agreement between the dissipation measures obtained in the PIC and continuum reconnection simulations, with slight differences due to the presence/absence of secondary islands in the two simulations. There are also many qualitative similarities between the signatures in the reconnection simulations and the self-consistent current sheets that form in turbulence, although the latter exhibits significant variations compared to the reconnection results. All the parameters confirm that dissipation occurs close to regions of intense magnetic stresses, thus exhibiting local correlation. The distribution function-based measures show a broader width compared to energy-based proxies, suggesting that energy transfer is co-localized at coherent structures, but can affect the particle distribution function in wider regions. The effect of interparticle collisions on these parameters is finally discussed.

Research Organization:
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
European Research Council (ERC); National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); SNSA; USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; SC0019315; SC0020294
OSTI ID:
1804131
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Journal Name: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 505; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Oxford University PressCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English

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