The dissipation of solar wind turbulent fluctuations at electron scales: Simulations

Details The dissipation of solar wind turbulent fluctuations at electron scales: Simulations The dissipation of solar wind turbulent fluctuations at electron scales: Simulations

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsh51d..07b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SH51D-07

Physics

Plasma Physics

[7829] Space Plasma Physics / Kinetic Waves And Instabilities, [7863] Space Plasma Physics / Turbulence

Scientific paper

We present results from two-dimensional fully-kinetic Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations of decaying electromagnetic fluctuations. The computational box is such that wavelengths ranging from electron to ion gyroradii are resolved. The parameters used are realistic for the solar wind, and the ion to electron mass ratio is physical. The understanding of the dissipation of turbulent fluctuations at small scales is thought to be a crucial mechanism for solar wind acceleration and coronal heating. The computational results suggest that a power law cascade of magnetic fluctuations could be sustained up to scales of the electron Larmor radius and smaller. We analyse the simulation results in the light of the Vlasov linear theory, and we comment on the particle heating. The dispersion curves of lightly damped modes in this regime suggest that a linear mechanism could be responsible for the observed steepening of power spectra at electron scales, but a straightforward identification of turbulent fluctuations as an ensemble of linear modes is not possible. We present the results of a search for signatures of turbulent reconnection in the simulations, in the parameter region for turbulence downstream of the quasi-parallel shock.

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