Effect of magnetic islands on the localization of kinetic Alfvén wave
- Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016 (India)
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 (United States)
Recent studies have revealed an intimate link between magnetic reconnection and turbulence. Observations show that kinetic Alfvén waves (KAWs) play a very crucial role in magnetic reconnection and have been a topic of interest from decades in the context of turbulence and particle heating. In the present paper, we study the role that KAW plays in the formation of coherent structures/current sheets when KAW is propagating in the pre-existing fully developed chain of magnetic islands. We derived the dynamical equation of KAW in the presence of chain of magnetic islands and solved it using numerical simulations well as analytic tools. Due to pre-existing chain of magnetic islands, KAW splits into coherent structures and the scale size of these structures along transverse directions (with respect to background magnetic field) comes out to be either less than or greater than ion gyro radius. Therefore, the present work may be the first step towards understanding how magnetic reconnection generated islands may affect the KAW localization and eventually contribute to magnetic turbulence. In this way the present approach may be helpful to understand the interplay between magnetic reconnection and turbulence in ion diffusion region.
- OSTI ID:
- 22489912
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Localization of linear kinetic Alfvén wave in an inhomogeneous plasma and generation of turbulence
Time dependent evolution of linear kinetic Alfvén waves in inhomogeneous plasma