Published in

Cambridge University Press, Journal of Plasma Physics, 01(84)

DOI: 10.1017/s0022377818000090

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

The Alfvénic nature of energy transfer mediation in localized, strongly nonlinear Alfvén wavepacket collisions

Journal article published in 2018 by J. L. Verniero ORCID, G. G. Howes ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

In space and astrophysical plasmas, violent events or instabilities inject energy into turbulent motions at large scales. Nonlinear interactions among the turbulent fluctuations drive a cascade of energy to small perpendicular scales at which the energy is ultimately converted into plasma heat. Previous work with the incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations has shown that this turbulent energy cascade is driven by the nonlinear interaction between counterpropagating Alfvén waves – also known as Alfvén wave collisions. Direct numerical simulations of weakly collisional plasma turbulence enables deeper insight into the nature of the nonlinear interactions underlying the turbulent cascade of energy. In this paper, we directly compare four cases: both periodic and localized Alfvén wave collisions in the weakly and strongly nonlinear limits. Our results reveal that in the more realistic case of localized Alfvén wave collisions (rather than the periodic case), all nonlinearly generated fluctuations are Alfvén waves, which mediates nonlinear energy transfer to smaller perpendicular scales.