Energy transport during 3D small-scale reconnection driven by anisotropic plasma turbulence

Energy dissipation in collisionless plasmas is a longstanding fundamental physics problem. Although it is well known that magnetic reconnection and turbulence are coupled and transport energy from system-size scales to sub-proton scales, the details of the energy distribution and energy dissipation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2022-08
Main Authors: Jeffersson A Agudelo Rueda, Verscharen, Daniel, Wicks, Robert T, Owen, Christopher J, Nicolaou, Georgios, Germaschewski, Kai, Walsh, Andrew P, Zouganelis, Ioannis, Santiago Vargas Domínguez
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boltzmann transport equation
Bulk density
Collisionless plasmas
Current sheets
Damping
Energy dissipation
Energy distribution
Energy transfer
Fluid flow
Kinetic energy
Plasma compression
Plasma turbulence
Thermal energy
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Summary:Energy dissipation in collisionless plasmas is a longstanding fundamental physics problem. Although it is well known that magnetic reconnection and turbulence are coupled and transport energy from system-size scales to sub-proton scales, the details of the energy distribution and energy dissipation channels remain poorly understood. Especially, the energy transfer and transport associated with three dimensional (3D) small-scale reconnection that occurs as a consequence of a turbulent cascade is unknown. We use an explicit fully kinetic particle-in-cell code to simulate 3D small scale magnetic reconnection events forming in anisotropic and Alfvénic decaying turbulence. We identify a highly dynamic and asymmetric reconnection event that involves two reconnecting flux ropes. We use a two-fluid approach based on the Boltzmann equation to study the spatial energy transfer associated with the reconnection event and compare the power density terms in the two-fluid energy equations with standard energy-based damping, heating and dissipation proxies. Our findings suggest that the electron bulk flow transports thermal energy density more efficiently than kinetic energy density. Moreover, in our turbulent reconnection event, the energy-density transfer is dominated by plasma compression. This is consistent with turbulent current sheets and turbulent reconnection events, but not with laminar reconnection.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2208.02350