No Arabic abstract
The kinetic effects of magnetic fields on the transport of relativistic jet in the intergalactic medium remain uncertain, especially for their perpendicular component. By particle-in-cell simulations, we find that when only jet electrons are fully magnetized, they are directly deflected by the magnetic field, but jet protons are mainly dragged by collective charge-separation electric field. However, when both electrons and protons are fully magnetized, the contrary is the case. Their balance tremendously distorts the jet density and electromagnetic fields, leading to enormous energy exchange between different species and fields. As a result, the electron spectrum energy distribution (SED) gets reshaped and the power law slope of the SED decreases as the magnetic field strength increases. In other words, we may infer that magnetic fields around the relativistic jet play a crucial role in shaping the observed SED.
The composition of the astrophysical relativistic jets remains uncertain. By kinetic particle-in-cell simulations, we show that the baryon component in the jet, or the so-called baryon loading effect (BLE), heavily affects relativistic jets transport dynamics in the interstellar medium. On the one hand, with the BLE, relativistic jets can transport in a much longer distance, because jet electrons draw a significant amount of energy from jet baryons via the Buneman-induced electrostatic waves and the Weibel-mediated collisionless shock; on the other hand, the jet electron phase space distribution may transform from a bottom-wide-single-peak structure to a center-wide-multiple-peak one by increasing the BLE, which largely influences the observed jet morphology. Implications for related astrophysical studies are also discussed.
We analyze how the turbulent transport of $mathbf{E}times mathbf{B}$ type in magnetically confined plasmas is affected by intermittent features of turbulence. The latter are captured by the non-Gaussian distribution $P(phi)$ of the turbulent electric potential $phi$. Our analysis is performed at an analytical level and confirmed numerically using two statistical approaches. We have found that the diffusion is inhibited linearly by intermittency, mainly via the kurtosis of the distribution $P(phi)$. The associated susceptibility for this linear process is shown to be dependent on the poloidal velocity $V_p$ and on the correlation time $tau_c$ with a maxima at the time-of-flight $tau_{fl}$. Intermittency does not affect the Kubo number scaling in the strong regime.
To faithfully simulate ITER and other modern fusion devices, one must resolve electron and ion fluctuation scales in a five-dimensional phase space and time. Simultaneously, one must account for the interaction of this turbulence with the slow evolution of the large-scale plasma profiles. Because of the enormous range of scales involved and the high dimensionality of the problem, resolved first-principles global simulations are very challenging using conventional (brute force) techniques. In this thesis, the problem of resolving turbulence is addressed by developing velocity space resolution diagnostics and an adaptive collisionality that allow for the confident simulation of velocity space dynamics using the approximate minimal necessary dissipation. With regard to the wide range of scales, a new approach has been developed in which turbulence calculations from multiple gyrokinetic flux tube simulations are coupled together using transport equations to obtain self-consistent, steady-state background profiles and corresponding turbulent fluxes and heating. This approach is embodied in a new code, Trinity, which is capable of evolving equilibrium profiles for multiple species, including electromagnetic effects and realistic magnetic geometry, at a fraction of the cost of conventional global simulations. Furthermore, an advanced model physical collision operator for gyrokinetics has been derived and implemented, allowing for the study of collisional turbulent heating, which has not been extensively studied. To demonstrate the utility of the coupled flux tube approach, preliminary results from Trinity simulations of the core of an ITER plasma are presented.
Scaling laws for the transport and heating of trace heavy ions in low-frequency, magnetized plasma turbulence are derived and compared with direct numerical simulations. The predicted dependences of turbulent fluxes and heating on ion charge and mass number are found to agree with numerical results for both stationary and differentially rotating plasmas. Heavy ion momentum transport is found to increase with mass, and heavy ions are found to be preferentially heated, implying a mass-dependent ion temperature for very weakly collisional plasmas and for partially-ionized heavy ions in strongly rotating plasmas.
We study supernova-driven galactic outflows as a mechanism for injecting turbulence in the intergalactic medium (IGM) far from galaxies. To this aim we follow the evolution of a 10^13 Msun galaxy along its merger tree, with carefully calibrated prescriptions for star formation and wind efficiencies. At z~3 the majority of the bubbles around galaxies are old (ages >1Gyr), i.e. they contain metals expelled by their progenitors at earlier times; their filling factor increases with time reaching about 10% at z<2. The energy deposited by these expanding shocks in the IGM is predominantly in kinetic form (mean energy density of 1 mu eV cm^-3, about 2-3 x the thermal one), which is rapidly converted in disordered motions by instabilities, finally resulting in a fully developed turbulent spectrum whose evolution is followed through a spectral transfer function approach. The derived mean IGM turbulent Doppler parameter, b_t, peaks at z~1 at about 1.5 km/s with maximum b_t = 25 km/s. The shape of the b_t distribution does not significantly evolve with redshift but undergoes a continuous shift towards lower b_t values with time, as a result of bubble aging. We find also a clear trend of decreasing b_t with N_HI and a more complex dependence on R_s resulting from the age spread of the bubbles. We have attempted a preliminary comparison with the data, hampered by the scarcity of the latter and by the challenge provided by the subtraction of peculiar and thermal motions. Finally we comment on the implications of turbulence for various cosmological studies.