Decaying Whistler Turbulence at Ion Scales: Particle-In-Cell simulation

Abstract:

Two-dimensional electromagnetic particle-in-cell simulation in magnetized, homogeneous, collisionless electron-ion plasma has been done to demonstrate the forward cascade of decaying whistler turbulence at ion scales. Fluctuations with right-handed polarization at scales larger than ion inertial length are applied as an initial condition of the simulation, which satisfy a dispersion relation of whistler waves in cold-magnetized plasma. The particle-in-cell simulation, which includes full kinetic properties of electrons and ions in collisionless plasma, demonstrates turbulent cascade and dissipation of fluctuation energy self-consistently. Discussion will focus on properties of decaying whistler turbulence at ion scales, such as the power-law index, wavenumber anisotropy, and plasma heating. Comparison of properties of whistler turbulence at ion scales with electron scales will also be discussed.