We present a detailed study of intermittency in the velocity and magnetic field fluctuations of compressible Hall-magnetohydrodynamic turbulence with an external guide field. To solve the equations numerically, a reduced model valid when a strong guide field is present is used. Different values for the ion skin depth are considered in the simulations. The resulting data is analyzed computing field increments in several directions perpendicular to the guide field, and building structure functions and probability density functions. In the magnetohydrodynamic limit we recover the usual results with the magnetic field being more intermittent than the velocity field. In the presence of the Hall effect, field fluctuations at scales smaller than the ion skin depth show a substantial decrease in the level of intermittency, with close to monofractal scaling.
Energy dissipation in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence is known to be highly intermittent in space, being concentrated in sheet-like coherent structures. Much less is known about intermittency in time, another fundamental aspect of turbulence which has great importance for observations of solar flares and other space/astrophysical phenomena. In this Letter, we investigate the temporal intermittency of energy dissipation in numerical simulations of MHD turbulence. We consider four-dimensional spatiotemporal structures, "flare events", responsible for a large fraction of the energy dissipati…
Intermittency is investigated using decaying direct numerical simulations of incompressible weak magnetohydrodynamic turbulence with a strong uniform magnetic field ${\bf b_0}$ and zero cross-helicity. At leading order, this regime is achieved via three-wave resonant interactions with the scattering of two of these waves on the third/slow mode for which $k_{\parallel} = 0$. When the interactions with the slow mode are artificially reduced the system exhibits an energy spectrum with $k_{\perp}^{-3/2}$, whereas the expected exact solution with $k_{\perp}^{-2}$ is recovered with the full nonlinea…
We present an analysis of data stemming from numerical simulations of decaying magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence up to grid resolution of 1536^3 points and up to Taylor Reynolds number of 1200. The initial conditions are such that the initial velocity and magnetic fields are helical and in equipartition, while their correlation is negligible. Analyzing the data at the peak of dissipation, we show that the dissipation in MHD seems to asymptote to a constant as the Reynolds number increases, thereby strengthening the possibility of fast reconnection events in the solar environment for very la…
We develop an analytic model of intermittent, three-dimensional, strong, reduced magnetohydrodynamic turbulence with zero cross helicity. We take the fluctuation amplitudes to have a log-Poisson distribution and incorporate into the model a new phenomenology of scale-dependent dynamic alignment. The log-Poisson distribution in our model is characterized by two parameters. To calculate these parameters, we make use of three assumptions: that the energy cascade rate is independent of scale within the inertial range, that the most intense coherent structures at scale $λ$ are sheet-like with a vol…
The transition to intermittent mean--field dynamos is studied using numerical simulations of isotropic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence driven by a helical flow. The low-Prandtl number regime is investigated by keeping the kinematic viscosity fixed while the magnetic diffusivity is varied. Just below the critical parameter value for the onset of dynamo action, a transient mean--field with low magnetic energy is observed. After the transition to a sustained dynamo, the system is shown to evolve through different types of intermittency until a large--scale coherent field with small--scale turbulen…
The understanding of inertial-scale dynamics in the heliosheath is not yet thorough. Magnetic field fluctuations across the inner heliosheath (IHS) and the local interstellar medium (LISM) are here considered to provide accurate and highly resolved statistics over different plasma conditions between 88 and 136 au. By using the unique in situ 48 s measurements from the Voyager Interstellar Mission, we investigate different fluctuation regimes at the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) scales, down to the MHD-to-kinetic transition. We focus on a range of scales exceeding five frequency decades (5 x 10-8 <…
A variety of studies of magnetised plasma turbulence invoke theories for the advection of a passive scalar by turbulent fluctuations. Examples include modelling the electron density fluctuations in the interstellar medium, understanding the chemical composition of galaxy clusters and the intergalactic medium, and testing the prevailing phenomenological theories of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. While passive scalar turbulence has been extensively studied in the hydrodynamic case, its counterpart in MHD turbulence is significantly less well understood. Herein we conduct a series of high-resolu…
In the present work, we study the energization and displacement of heavy ions through the use of test particles interacting with the electromagnetic fields of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. These fields are obtained from pseudospectral direct numerical solutions (DNSs) of the compressible three-dimensional MHD equations with a strong background magnetic field. We find particle energization to be predominantly perpendicular as the ions become heavier (lower charge-to-mass ratio) and that high displacement is detrimental for perpendicular energization. On the other hand, perpendicular dis…
Nonthermal acceleration of particles in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence plays a central role in a wide variety of astrophysical sites. This physics is addressed here in the context of a strong turbulence, composed of coherent structures rather than waves, beyond the realm of quasilinear theory. The present description tracks the momentum of the particle through a sequence of frames in which the electric field vanishes, in the spirit of the original Fermi scenario. It connects the sources of energy gain (or loss) to the gradients of the velocity of the magnetic field lines, in particular t…
We study the spatio-temporal behavior of the Elsässer variables describing magnetic and velocity field fluctuations, using direct numerical simulations of three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. We consider cases with relatively small, intermediate, and large values of a mean background magnetic field, and with null, small, and high cross-helicity (correlations between the velocity and the magnetic field). Wavenumber-dependent time correlation functions are computed for the different simulations. From these correlation functions, the decorrelation time is computed and compared with d…
The energy spectrum of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence attracts interest due to its fundamental importance and its relevance for interpreting astrophysical data. Here we present measurements of the energy spectra from a series of high-resolution direct numerical simulations of MHD turbulence with a strong guide field and for increasing Reynolds number. The presented simulations, with numerical resolutions up to 2048^3 mesh points and statistics accumulated over 30 to 150 eddy turnover times, constitute, to the best of our knowledge, the largest statistical sample of steady state MHD turbulence …
Recent measurements of solar wind turbulence report the presence of intermittent, exponentially distributed angular discontinuities in the magnetic field. In this Letter, we study whether such discontinuities can be produced by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. We detect the discontinuities by measuring the fluctuations of the magnetic field direction, Delta theta, across fixed spatial increments Delta x in direct numerical simulations of MHD turbulence with an imposed uniform guide field B_0. A large region of the probability density function (pdf) for Delta theta is found to follow an ex…
Magnetised plasma turbulence pervades the universe and is likely to play an important role in a variety of astrophysical settings. Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) provides the simplest theoretical framework in which phenomenological models for the turbulent dynamics can be built. Numerical simulations of MHD turbulence are widely used to guide and test the theoretical predictions; however, simulating MHD turbulence and accurately measuring its scaling properties is far from straightforward. Computational power limits the calculations to moderate Reynolds numbers and often simplifying assumptions ar…
Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is invoked to address turbulent fluctuations in a variety of astrophysical systems. MHD turbulence in nature is often anisotropic and imbalanced, in that Alfvenic fluctuations moving in opposite directions along the background magnetic field carry unequal energies. This work formulates specific requirements for effective numerical simulations of strong imbalanced MHD turbulence with a guide field B0 High-resolution simulations are then performed and they suggest that the spectra of the counter-propagating Alfven modes do not differ from the balanced case, while their…
We investigate the effect of the thermal imbalance on the structural stability of the magnetohydrodynamic model of the preflare current layer (Ledentsov, Sol. Phys. 296, 74, 2021). The piecewise homogeneous model of the current layer is supplemented by a magnetic field longitudinal with respect to the direction of the current. It is shown that the presence of a weak longitudinal field does not change the previously calculated spatial period of the thermal instability in the most expected range of the parameters of the preflare current layer and, moreover, contributes to the formation of the in…
We develop a first-principles scaling theory of the spreading of three-dimensional (3D) magnetic reconnection of finite extent in the out of plane direction. This theory addresses systems with or without an out of plane (guide) magnetic field, and with or without Hall physics. The theory reproduces known spreading speeds and directions with and without guide fields, unifying previous knowledge in a single theory. New results include: (1) Reconnection spreads in a particular direction if an x-line is induced at the interface between reconnecting and non-reconnecting regions, which is controlled…
The transition from weak to strong turbulence when passing from large to small scales in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence with guide field is a cornerstone of anisotropic turbulence theory. We present the first check of this transition, using the Shell-RMHD which combines a shell model of perpendicular nonlinear coupling and linear propagation along the guide field. This model allows us to reach Reynolds numbers around $10^6$. We obtain surprisingly good agreement with the theoretical predictions, with a reduced perpendicular energy spectrum scaling as $k^{-2}$ at large scales and as $k^{-…
Kinetic Riemann simulations have been completed to explore particle heating during guide field reconnection in the low-$β$ environment of the inner heliosphere and the solar corona. The reconnection exhaust is bounded by two rotational discontinuities (RD) and two slow shocks (SS) form within the exhaust as in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models. At the RDs, ions are accelerated by the magnetic field tension to drive the reconnection outflow as well as flows in the out-of-plane direction. The out-of-plane flows stream toward the midplane and meet to drive the SSs. The SSs differ greatly from thos…
Solar flares may be the best-known examples of the explosive conversion of magnetic energy into bulk motion, plasma heating, and particle acceleration via magnetic reconnection. The energy source for all flares is the highly sheared magnetic field of a filament channel above a polarity inversion line (PIL). During the flare, this shear field becomes the so-called reconnection guide field (i.e., the non-reconnecting component), which has been shown to play a major role in determining key properties of the reconnection including the efficiency of particle acceleration. We present new high-resolu…
Using a three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic model, we simulate the magnetic reconnection in a single current sheet. We assume a finite guide field, a random perturbation on the velocity field and uniform resistivity. Our model enhances the reconnection rate relative to the classical Sweet-Parker model in the same configuration. The efficiency of magnetic energy conversion is increased by interactions between the multiple tearing layers coexisting in the global current sheet. This interaction, which forms a positive-feedback system, arises from coupling of the inflow and outflow regions in di…
We analyze a series of three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulations of magnetic reconnection in a model solar corona to study the effect of the guide field component on quasi-steady state interchange reconnection in a pseudostreamer arcade configuration. This work extends the analysis of \citet{Edmondson2010b} by quantifying the mass density enhancement coherency scale in the current sheet associated with magnetic island formation during the nonlinear phase of plasmoid-unstable reconnection. We compare the results of four simulations of a zero, weak, moderate, and a strong guide…
We performed three dimensional resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations to study the magnetic reconnection using an initially shearing magnetic field configuration (force free field with a current sheet in the middle of the computational box). It is shown that there are two types of reconnection jets: the ordinary reconnection jets and fan-shaped jets, which are formed along the guide magnetic field. The fan-shaped jets are much different from the ordinary reconnection jets which are ejected by magnetic tension force. There are two driving forces for accelerating the fan-shaped jets. The one …
Context. The presence of a magnetic guide field induces several types of anisotropy in solar wind turbulence. The energy cascade rate between scales in the inertial range depends strongly on the direction of this magnetic guide field, splitting the energy cascade according to the parallel and perpendicular directions with respect to magnetic guide field. Aims. Using more than two years of Parker Solar Probe (PSP) observations, the isotropy and anisotropy energy cascade rates are investigated. The variance and normalized fluctuation ratios, the kinetic and magnetic energies, and the normalized …
Study of the 1/f spectrum using virtual spacecraft sampling in MHD turbulence
Universidad de Buenos Aires（布宜诺斯艾利斯大学）；CONICET - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Física Interdisciplinaria y Aplicada (INFINA)（阿根廷国家科学研究委员会-布宜诺斯艾利斯大学跨学科与应用物理研究所）
Dynamical and thermal evolution of localized reconnecting current sheets under varying guide-fields in the solar corona
KU Leuven（荷语鲁汶大学）；Indian Institute of Technology (BHU)（印度理工大学（贝拿勒斯印度教大学））；Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy（比利时皇家空间气动力学研究所）；University of Dundee（邓迪大学）；Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen（哈尔滨工业大学（深圳））；Kyoto University（京都大学）；Sichuan Normal University（四川师范大学）
Magnetic reconnection in the partially ionized solar chromosphere is studied in 2.5-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations including radiative cooling and ambipolar diffusion. A Harris current sheet with and without a guide field is considered. Characteristic values of the parameters in the middle chromosphere imply a high magnetic Reynolds number of $\sim10^{6}\mbox{--}10^7$ in the present simulations. Fast magnetic reconnection then develops as a consequence of the plasmoid instability without the need to invoke anomalous resistivity enhancements. Multiple levels of the instability are …
Classical Sweet-Parker models of reconnection predict that reconnection rates depend inversely on the resistivity, usually parameterized using the dimensionless Lundquist number ($\Lund$). We describe magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations using a static, nested grid that show the development of a three-dimensional instability in the plane of a current sheet between reversing field lines without a guide field. The instability leads to rapid reconnection of magnetic field lines at a rate independent of $\Lund$ over at least the range $3.2\times 10^3 \lesssim \Lund \lesssim 3.2 \times 10^5$ resol…
Residual energy in weakly compressible turbulence with a mean guide field
California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院）；Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）；University of Toronto（多伦多大学）
The launch of the Hinode satellite has allowed unprecedented high resolution, stable images of solar quiescent prominences to be taken over extended periods of time. These new images led to the discovery of dark upflows that propagated from the base of prominences developing highly turbulent profiles. As yet, how these flows are driven is not fully understood. To study the physics behind this phenomena we use 3-D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations to investigate the nonlinear stability of the Kippenhahn-Shlüter prominence model to the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The model simulate…
A sequence of apparently coupled eruptions was observed on 2010 August 1-2 by SDO and STEREO. The eruptions were closely synchronized with one another, even though some of them occurred at widely separated locations. In an attempt to identify a plausible reason for such synchronization, we study the large-scale structure of the background magnetic configuration. The coronal field was computed from the photospheric magnetic field observed at the appropriate time period by using the potential field source-surface model. We investigate the resulting field structure by analyzing the so-called squa…
We investigate the dynamical evolution of magnetic fields in closed regions of solar and stellar coronae. To understand under which conditions current sheets form, we examine dissipative and ideal reduced magnetohydrodynamic models in cartesian geometry, where two magnetic field components are present: the strong guide field $B_0$, extended along the axial direction, and the dynamical orthogonal field $\mathbf{b}$. Magnetic field lines thread the system along the axial direction, that spans the length $L$, and are line-tied at the top and bottom plates. The magnetic field $b$ initially has onl…
The statistical properties of magnetic discontinuities in the solar wind are investigated by measuring fluctuations in the magnetic field direction, given by the rotation Delta theta that the magnetic field vector undergoes during time interval Delta t. We show that the probability density function for rotations, P(Delta theta), can be described by a simple model in which the magnetic field vector rotates with a relative increment (Delta B)/B that is lognormally distributed. We find that the probability density function of increments, P((Delta B)/B), has a remarkable scaling property: the norm…
