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Gyrokinetic Simulations of Solar Wind Turbulence from Ion to Electron Scales
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Gyrokinetic Simulations of Solar Wind Turbulence from Ion to Electron Scales

Gregory G Howes, Jason M TenBarge, William Dorland, Eliot Quataert, Alexander A Schekochihin, Ryusuke Numata and Tomoya Tatsuno
Physical review letters, Vol.107(3), pp.035004-035004
04/05/2011
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.035004
PMID: 21838370
url
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1104.0877View
Open Access

Abstract

The first three-dimensional, nonlinear gyrokinetic simulation of plasma turbulence resolving scales from the ion to electron gyroradius with a realistic mass ratio is presented, where all damping is provided by resolved physical mechanisms. The resulting energy spectra are quantitatively consistent with a magnetic power spectrum scaling of $k^{-2.8}$ as observed in \emph{in situ} spacecraft measurements of the "dissipation range" of solar wind turbulence. Despite the strongly nonlinear nature of the turbulence, the linear kinetic \Alfven wave mode quantitatively describes the polarization of the turbulent fluctuations. The collisional ion heating is measured at sub-ion-Larmor radius scales, which provides the first evidence of the ion entropy cascade in an electromagnetic turbulence simulation.
Physics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

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