Magnetic island merger as a mechanism for inverse magnetic energy transfer
Name
PhysRevResearch.1.012004.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.09 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7b8690f1b3b9bf9c27569f22015c1c12
Author(s)
Zhou, Muni
Bhat, Pallavi
Gomes Loureiro, Nuno F
Uzdensky, Dmitri A.
Zhou, Muni
Date Issued
August 9, 2019
Journal
Physical Review Research
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Citation
Muni Zhou et al. "Magnetic island merger as a mechanism for inverse magnetic energy transfer." Physical Research Review 1, 1 (August, 2019): 012004(R). © 2019 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Magnetic energy transfer from small to large scales due to successive magnetic island coalescence is
investigated. A solvable analytical model is introduced and shown to correctly capture the evolution of the main
quantities of interest, as borne out by direct numerical simulations. Magnetic reconnection is identified as the
key mechanism enabling the inverse transfer, and setting its properties: Magnetic energy decays as [˜ over t][superscript −1], where [˜ over t] is time normalized to the (appropriately defined) reconnection timescale, and the correlation length of the field grows as [˜ over t][superscript 1/2]. The magnetic energy spectrum is self-similar, and evolves as ∝[˜ over t][superscript −3/2]k[superscript −2,] where the k dependence
is imparted by the formation of thin current sheets.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Plasma Science and Fusion Center
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVRESEARCH.1.012004
