Coherent structures, dissipation and intermittency in plasma turbulence

Abstract:

The nature of collisionless dissipation in turbulent plasmas such as the solar wind and the solar corona has been hotly debated recently. Here we report results from high resolution, fully kinetic simulations of plasmas turbulence in both two and three dimensions. The simulations show development of turbulent coherent structures, characterized by sheet-like current density structures spanning a range of scales. Results from particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are also compared with MHD simulations in terms of coherent structures, dissipation and intermittency. An important conclusion, for all simulations examined, is that the dissipation is concentrated in very small volumes, reminiscent of the scenario that motivates the Kolmogorov refined similarity hypothesis in hydrodynamic turbulence. Extrapolated to large heliospheric system sizes, this leads to the expectation of significant departures from heating processes that operate uniformly in space. Results from latest 3D driven PIC simulations, as well as the connection to solar wind observations, will also be discussed.