SH21A:
The Forefront of Kappa Distributions: Understanding Plasma Processes in the Heliosphere and Kolmogorov in Space—Application and Extension of Turbulence Theory in Space Plasmas I


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Session ID#: 61273

Session Description:
Space plasmas are often collisionless and correlated particle systems characterized by a non-Maxwellian behavior, typically described by the formulations of kappa distributions. These distributions were first widely used to model both the “core” and “tail” features of the observed distributions. Recent developments explain the origin of kappa distributions through statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, revealing the robust physical meaning of temperature, kappa index, thermal pressure, entropy, and other thermodynamic parameters that characterize space plasma properties and processes.

More than fifty years after the earliest observations of powerlaw magnetic spectra in the solar wind, hydrodynamic turbulence theories emanating from the pioneering works of Taylor, von Karman, Kolmogorov, Oubukov and others, have been applied and extended in many ways. This activity extends into corona, solar wind, magnetosheric, planetary and astrophysical applications. With the advent of high resolution and multispacecraft instrumentation, turbulence concepts have probed deeply into the realm of kinetic plasma phenomena.

Primary Convener:  George Livadiotis, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States
Conveners:  Prof. William H Matthaeus, University of Delaware, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Newark, DE, United States, Heather Alison Elliott, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States and Minping Wan, University of Delaware, Newark, United States
Primary Liaison:  George Livadiotis, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States
Chairs:  Kostas Dialynas, Office for Space Research and Technology, Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece and Heather Alison Elliott, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States
OSPA Liaison:  Kostas Dialynas, Office for Space Research and Technology, Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece

Cross-Listed:
  • SM - SPA-Magnetospheric Physics
Index Terms:

2149 MHD waves and turbulence [INTERPLANETARY PHYSICS]
4490 Turbulence [NONLINEAR GEOPHYSICS]
7509 Corona [SOLAR PHYSICS, ASTROPHYSICS, AND ASTRONOMY]
7863 Turbulence [SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS]

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Concerning pressure and entropy of heliosheath electrons (Invited) (343532)
Hans Joerg Fahr, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Kappa distributions to model electrons and ions in the corona and the solar wind (394423)
Viviane Pierrard, Belgisch Instituut voor Ruimte-Aeronomie, Space Physics, Brussel, Belgium; Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), Brussels, Belgium
Kolmogorov’s Legacy in a Field He Hardly Knew (Invited) (353001)
Charles William Smith, University of New Hampshire, Durham, United States
Plasma Turbulence in Phase Space: 3D-3V Hybrid-Vlasov-Maxwell Simulations (368466)
Silvio Sergio Cerri1, Matthew W Kunz1 and Francesco Califano2, (1)Princeton University, Princeton, United States, (2)University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
Study of seismicity of Japan and California by means of natural time analysis and non-extensive statistical mechanics (Invited) (352353)
Nicholas V Sarlis1, Efthimios S Skordas1 and Panayiotis Varotsos2, (1)National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Physics, Athens, Greece, (2)National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Solid Earth Physics Institute, Athens, Greece
Exact Theory of Kinetic Turbulence in Nearly Collisionless Plasmas (Invited) (350046)
Gregory L Eyink, Johns Hopkins University, Baltmore, MD, United States
Influence of Kappa Distributions on the Whistler-mode Instability (395174)
Danny Summers, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada and Rongxin Tang, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
Scale dependence of energy transfer in turbulent plasma (388255)
Yan Yang1, Minping Wan1, Prof. William H Matthaeus2, Tulasi Parashar3, Luca Sorriso-Valvo4, Yipeng Shi5 and Shiyi Chen1, (1)Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China, (2)University of Delaware, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Newark, DE, United States, (3)University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States, (4)CNR, Bari, Italy, (5)Peking University, State Key Laboratory for Turbulence & Complex Systems, Beijing, China
Methods to Determine the Bulk Properties of Space Plasmas and Potential Applications (440393)
Masatoshi Yamauchi, IRF Swedish Institute of Space Physics Kiruna, Kiruna, Sweden, Georgios Nicolaou, University College London, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, London, United Kingdom, Christopher John Owen, UCL, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Dorking, United Kingdom and George Livadiotis, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States

See more of: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics