We present numerical evidence that in strong Alfvenic turbulence, the critical balance principle---equality of the nonlinear decorrelation and linear propagation times---is scale invariant, in the sense that the probability distribution of the ratio of these times is independent of scale. This result only holds if the local alignment of the Elsasser fields is taken into account in calculating the nonlinear time. At any given scale, the degree of alignment is found to increase with fluctuation amplitude, supporting the idea that the cause of alignment is mutual dynamical shearing of Elsasser fields. The scale-invariance of critical balance (while all other quantities of interest are strongly intermittent, i.e., have scale-dependent distributions) suggests that it is the most robust of the scaling principles used to describe Alfvenic turbulence. The quality afforded by situ fluctuation measurements in the solar wind allows for direct verification of this fundamental principle.
Turbulent magnetic field fluctuations observed in the solar wind often maintain a constant magnitude condition accompanied by spherically polarized velocity fluctuations; these signatures are characteristic of large-amplitude Alfvén waves. Nonlinear energy transfer in Alfvénic turbulence is typically considered in the small-amplitude limit where the constant magnitude condition may be neglected; in contrast, nonlinear energy transfer in the large-amplitude limit remains relatively unstudied. We develop a method to analyze finite-amplitude turbulence through studying fluctuations as constant ma…
We present the first measurement of the scale-dependent power anisotropy of Elsasser variables in imbalanced fast solar wind turbulence. The dominant Elsasser mode is isotropic at lower spacecraft frequencies but becomes increasingly anisotropic at higher frequencies. The sub-dominant mode is anisotropic throughout, but in a scale-independent way (at higher frequencies). There are two distinct subranges exhibiting different scalings within what is normally considered the inertial range. The low Alfven ratio and shallow scaling of the sub-dominant Elsasser mode suggest an interpretation of the …
In the lower solar coronal regions where the magnetic field is dominant, the Alfven speed is much higher than the wind speed. In contrast, the near-Earth solar wind is strongly super-Alfvenic, i.e., the wind speed greatly exceeds the Alfven speed. The transition between these regimes is classically described as the "Alfven point" but may in fact occur in a distributed Alfven critical region. NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission has entered this region, as it follows a series of orbits that gradually approach more closely to the sun. During its 8th and 9th solar encounters, at a distance of …
Parker Solar Probe (PSP) entered a region of the sub-Alfvenic solar wind during encounter 8 and we present the first detailed analysis of low-frequency turbulence properties in this novel region. The magnetic field and flow velocity vectors were highly aligned during this interval. By constructing spectrograms of the normalized magnetic helicity, cross helicity, and residual energy, we find that PSP observed primarily Alfvenic fluctuations, a consequence of the highly field-aligned flow that renders quasi-2D fluctuations unobservable to PSP. We extend Taylor hypothesis to sub and super Alfveni…
Anisotropic Alfvénic fluctuations with $k_{\parallel}/k_{\perp}\ll 1$ remain at frequencies much smaller than the ion cyclotron frequency in the presence of a strong background magnetic field. Based on the simplest truncation of the electromagnetic gyrofluid equations in a homogeneous plasma, a model for the energy cascade produced by Alfvénic turbulence is constructed, which smoothly connect the large magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) scales and the small "kinetic" scales. Scaling relations are obtained for the electromagnetic fluctuations, as a function of $k_{\perp}$ and $k_{\parallel}$. Moreover,…
We propose a simple statistical model of three-dimensionally anisotropic, intermittent, strong Alfvénic turbulence, incorporating both critical balance and dynamic alignment. Our model is based on log-Poisson statistics for Elsasser-field increments along the magnetic field. We predict the scalings of Elsasser-field conditional two-point structure functions with point separations in all three directions in a coordinate system locally aligned with the direction of the magnetic field and of the fluctuating fields and obtain good agreement with numerical simulations. We also derive a scaling of t…
One proposed mechanism for heating the solar wind, from close to the sun to beyond 10 AU, invokes low-frequency, oblique, Alfven-wave turbulence. Because small-scale oblique Alfven waves (kinetic Alfven waves) are compressive, the measured density fluctuations in the solar wind place an upper limit on the amplitude of kinetic Alfven waves and hence an upper limit on the rate at which the solar wind can be heated by low-frequency, Alfvenic turbulence. We evaluate this upper limit for both coronal holes at 5 solar radii and in the near-Earth solar wind. At both radii, the upper limit we find is …
We study the heating of charged test particles in three-dimensional numerical simulations of weakly compressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence (``Alfvenic turbulence''); these results are relevant to particle heating and acceleration in the solar wind, solar flares, accretion disks onto black holes, and other astrophysics and heliospheric environments. The physics of particle heating depends on whether the gyrofrequency of a particle is comparable to the frequency of a turbulent fluctuation that is resolved on the computational domain. Particles with these frequencies nearly equal under…
This paper summarises some of the recent progress that has been made in understanding astrophysical plasma turbulence in the solar wind, from in situ spacecraft observations. At large scales, where the turbulence is predominantly Alfvenic, measurements of critical balance, residual energy, and 3D structure are discussed, along with comparison to recent models of strong Alfvenic turbulence. At these scales, a few percent of the energy is also in compressive fluctuations, and their nature, anisotropy, and relation to the Alfvenic component is described. In the small scale kinetic range, below th…
In this paper we systematically study the spectrum and structure of incompressible MHD turbulence by means of high resolution direct numerical simulations. We considered both balanced and imbalanced (cross-helical) cases and simulated sub-Alfvenic as well as trans-Alfvenic turbulence. This paper extends numerics preliminarily reported in Beresnyak & Lazarian (2008). We confirm that driven imbalanced turbulence has a stationary state even for high degrees of imbalance. Our major finding is that the structure of the dominant and subdominant Alfvenic components are notably different. Using the mo…
A unique method of driving Alfvenic turbulence via an oscillating Langevin antenna is presented. This method of driving is motivated by a desire to inject energy into a finite domain numerical simulation in a manner that models the nonlinear transfer of energy from fluctuations in the turbulent cascade at scales larger than the simulation domain.. The oscillating Langevin antenna is shown to capture the essential features of the larger scale turbulence and efficiently couple to the plasma, generating steady-state turbulence within one characteristic turnaround time. The antenna is also suffici…
We revisit the issue of spectral slope of MHD turbulence in the inertial range and argue that numerics favor Goldreich-Sridhar -5/3 slope rather than -3/2 slope. We also did precision measurements of anisotropy of MHD turbulence and determined the anisotropy constant C_A=0.34 of Alfvenic turbulence. Together with previously measured Kolmogorov constant C_K=4.2, or 3.3 for purely Alfvenic case, it constitutes a full description of MHD cascade in terms of spectral quantities, which is of high practical value for astrophysics.
We measure the local anisotropy of numerically simulated strong Alfvénic turbulence with respect to two local, physically relevant directions: along the local mean magnetic field and along the local direction of one of the fluctuating Elsasser fields. We find significant scaling anisotropy with respect to both these directions: the fluctuations are "ribbon-like" --- statistically, they are elongated along both the mean magnetic field and the fluctuating field. The latter form of anisotropy is due to scale-dependent alignment of the fluctuating fields. The intermittent scalings of the $n$th-ord…
In the parts of the solar corona and solar wind that experience the fewest Coulomb collisions, the component proton, electron, and heavy ion populations are not in thermal equilibrium with one another. Observed differences in temperatures, outflow speeds, and velocity distribution anisotropies are useful constraints on proposed explanations for how the plasma is heated and accelerated. This paper presents new predictions of the rates of collisionless heating for each particle species, in which the energy input is assumed to come from magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. We first created an em…
It is often asserted or implicitly assumed, without justification, that the results of two-dimensional investigations of plasma turbulence are applicable to the three-dimensional plasma environments of interest. A projection method is applied to derive two scalar equations that govern the nonlinear evolution of the Alfvenic and pseudo-Alfvenic components of ideal incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) plasma turbulence. The mathematical form of these equations makes clear the inherently three-dimensional nature of plasma turbulence, enabling an analysis of the nonlinear properties of two-dim…
How the solar wind is accelerated to its supersonic speed is intimately related to how it is heated. Mechanisms based on ion-cyclotron resonance have been successful in explaining a large number of observations, those concerning the significant ion temperature anisotropy above coronal holes in particular. However, they suffer from the inconsistency with turbulence theory which says that the turbulent cascade in a low-beta medium like the solar corona should proceed in the perpendicular rather than the parallel direction, meaning that there is little energy in the ion gyro-frequency range for i…
Ambipolar diffusion (AD) is believed to be a crucial process for redistributing magnetic flux in the dense molecular gas that occurs in regions of star formation. We carry out numerical simulations of this process in regions of low ionization using the heavy ion approximation. The simulations are for regions of strong field (plasma β=0.1) and mildly supersonic turbulence (M=3, corresponding to an Alfven mach number of 0.67). The velocity power spectrum of the neutral gas changes from an Iroshnikov-Kraichnan spectrum in the case of ideal MHD to a Burgers spectrum in the case of a shock-dominate…
Ambipolar diffusion is important in redistributing magnetic flux and in damping Alfven waves in molecular clouds. The importance of ambipolar diffusion on a length scale $\ell$ is governed by the ambipolar diffusion Reynolds number, $\rad=\ell/\lad$, where $\lad$ is the characteristic length scale for ambipolar diffusion. The logarithmic mean of the AD Reynolds number in a sample of 15 molecular clumps with measured magnetic fields (Crutcher 1999) is 17, comparable to the theoretically expected value. We identify several regimes of ambipolar diffusion in a turbulent medium, depending on the ra…
Spatiotemporal Properties of Compressible Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence from Space Plasma
Institut für Physik und Astronomie, Universität Potsdam（波茨坦大学物理与天文学研究所）；Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY（德国电子同步辐射中心）；Institute of Science and Technology for Deep Space Exploration, Nanjing University（南京大学深空探测科学与技术研究院）；Shandong Key Laboratory of Space Environment and Exploration Technology, Institute of Space Sciences, School of Space Science and Technology, Shandong University（山东大学空间科学与技术学院空间科学研究所空间环境与探测技术山东省重点实验室）；Universität Potsdam（波茨坦大学）
{This work aims to investigate the spectral structure of the parallel electric field generated by strong anisotropic and balanced Alfvenic turbulence in relation with the problem of electron acceleration from the thermal population in solar flare plasma conditions.} {We consider anisotropic Alfvenic fluctuations in the presence of a strong background magnetic field. Exploiting this anisotropy, a set of reduced equations governing non-linear, two-fluid plasma dynamics is derived. The low-$β$ limit of this model is used to follow the turbulent cascade of the energy resulting from the non-linear …
