Non-gyrotropic pressure anisotropy induced by velocity shear.

Abstract:

We discuss how, in a collisionless magnetized plasma, a sheared velocity field may lead to the anisotropization of an initial Maxwellian state. By including the full pressure tensor dynamics in a fluid plasma model, we show, analytically and numerically, that a sheared velocity field makes an initial isotropic state anisotropic and non-gyrotropic [1], i.e., makes the plasma pressure tensor anisotropic also in the plane perpendicular to the magnetic field. The propagation of transverse magneto-elastic waves in the anisotropic plasma affects the process of formation of a non-gyrotropic pressure and can lead to its spatial filamentation. This plasma dynamics implies in particular that isotropic MHD equilibria cease to be equilibria in presence of a stationary sheared flow. Similarly, in the case of turbulence, where small-scale spatial inhomogeneities are naturally developed during the direct cascade, we may expect that isotropic turbulent states are not likely to exist whenever a full pressure tensor evolution is accounted for. These results may be relevant to understanding the agyrotropic pressure configurations which are well documented in solar wind measurements and possibly correlated to plasma flows (see e.g. Refs.[2,3]), and which have also been measured in Vlasov simulations of Alfvenic turbulence [4].

[1] D. Del Sarto, F. Pegoraro, F. Califano, "Pressure anisotropy and small spatial scales induced by a velocity shear", http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.04895

[2] H.F. Astudillo, E. Marsch, S. Livi, H. Rosenbauer, "TAUS measurements of non-gyrotropic distribution functions of solar wind alpha particles", AIP Conf. Proc. 328, 289 (1996).

[3] A. Posner, M.W. Liemhon, T.H. Zurbuchen, "Upstream magnetospheric ion flux tube within a magnetic cloud: Wind/STICS", Geophys. Res. Lett. 30, (2003).

[4] S. Servidio, F. Valentini, F. Califano, P. Veltri, "Local kinetic effects in Two-Dimensional Plasma Turbulence", Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 045001 (2012).