Theoretical astrophysics and plasma physics at RPC

Abstract:

SignificanceAstronomical observations indicate that dynamically important magnetic fields are ubiquitous in the Universe, while their origin remains a profound mystery. This work provides a paradigm for understanding the origin of cosmic magnetism by taking into account the effects of the microphysics of collisionless plasmas on macroscopic astrophysical processes. We demonstrate that the first magnetic fields can be spontaneously generated in the Universe by generic motions of astrophysical turbulence through kinetic plasma physics, and cosmic plasmas are thereby ubiquitously magnetized. Our theoretical and numerical results set the stage for determining how these "seed" magnetic fields are further amplified by the turbulent dynamo (another central and long-standing question) and thus advance a fully self-consistent explanation of cosmic magnetogenesis.

Abstract:

A linear response, local model for the DBS amplitude applied to gyrokinetic simulations shows that radial correlation Doppler reflectometry measurements (RCDR, Schirmer et al 2007 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 49 1019) are not sensitive to the average turbulence radial correlation length, but to a correlation length that depends on the binormal wavenumber k⊥ selected by the Doppler backscattering (DBS) signal. Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations show that the turbulence naturally exhibits a nonseparable power law spectrum in wavenumber space, leading to a power law dependence of the radial correlation length with binormal wavenumber lr ∼ Ck−α ⊥ (α ≈ 1) which agrees with the inverse proportionality relationship between the measured lr and k⊥ observed in experiments (Fern´andez-Marina et al 2014 Nucl. Fusion 54 072001). This new insight indicates that RCDR characterizes the eddy aspect ratio in the perpendicular plane to the magnetic field. It also motivates future use of a nonseparable turbulent spectrum to quantitatively interpret RCDR and potentially other turbulence diagnostics. The radial correlation length is only measurable when the radial resolution at the cutoff location Wn satisfies Wn ≪ lr , while the measurement becomes dominated by Wn for Wn ≫ lr . This suggests that lr is likely to be inaccessible for electron-scale DBS measurements (k⊥ρs > 1). The effect of Wn on ion-scale radial correlation lengths could be nonnegligible.