Collisionless Reconnection in Magnetohydrodynamic and Kinetic Turbulence
Name
Loureiro_2017_ApJ_850_182.pdf
Size
257.3 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f9a3a952b0a98d3c095a6426616a980f
Author(s)
Boldyrev, Stanislav
Gomes Loureiro, Nuno F
Date Issued
December 2017
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Citation
Loureiro, Nuno F., and Stanislav Boldyrev. “Collisionless Reconnection in Magnetohydrodynamic and Kinetic Turbulence.” The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 850, no. 2, Dec. 2017, p. 182. © 2017 The American Astronomical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
It has recently been proposed that the inertial interval in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence is terminated at small scales not by a Kolmogorov-like dissipation region, but rather by a new sub-inertial interval mediated by tearing instability. However, many astrophysical plasmas are nearly collisionless so the MHD approximation is not
applicable to turbulence at small scales. In this paper, we propose an extension of the theory of reconnection-mediated turbulence to plasmas which are so weakly collisional that the reconnection occurring in the turbulent eddies is caused by electron inertia rather than by resistivity. We find that the transition scale to reconnection-mediated turbulence depends on the plasma beta and on the assumptions of the plasma turbulence model.
However, in all of the cases analyzed, the energy spectra in the reconnection-mediated interval range from E(k[subscript ⊥])dk[subscript ⊥] ∝ k[subscript ⊥] [superscript -8/3]dk[subscript ⊥] to E (k[subscript ⊥])dk[subscript ⊥]k ∝ k[subscript ⊥][superscript -3]dk[subscript ⊥].
Key words: magnetic fields – magnetic reconnection – magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) – plasmas – turbulence
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Plasma Science and Fusion Center
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/AA9754
