Magneto-immutable turbulence in weakly collisional plasmas
We propose that pressure anisotropy causes weakly collisional turbulent plasmas to self-organize so as to resist changes in magnetic-field strength. We term this effect ‘magneto-immutability’ by analogy with incompressibility (resistance to changes in pressure). The effect is important when the pressure anisotropy becomes comparable to the magnetic pressure, suggesting that in collisionless, weakly magnetized (high- $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ ) plasmas its dynamical relevance is similar to that of incompressibility. Simulations of magnetized turbulence using the weakly collisional Braginskii model show that magneto-immutable turbulence is surprisingly similar, in most statistical measures, to critically balanced magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. However, in order to minimize magnetic-field variation, the flow direction becomes more constrained than in magnetohydrodynamics, and the turbulence is more strongly dominated by magnetic energy (a non-zero ‘residual energy’). These effects represent key differences between pressure-anisotropic and fluid turbulence, and should be observable in the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}\gtrsim 1$ turbulent solar wind.
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Publication Date:
NSF-PAR ID:
10204598
Journal Name:
Journal of Plasma Physics
Volume:
85
Issue:
1
ISSN:
0022-3778
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