Models of magnetic field evolution and effective viscosity in weakly collisional extragalactic plasmas

In weakly collisional plasmas such as the intracluster medium (ICM), the viscous stress and the rate of change of the magnetic energy are proportional to the local pressure anisotropy, so subject to constraints imposed by the pressure-anisotropy-driven microinstabilities (mirror and firehose) and controlled by the local instantaneous plasma β. The dynamics of such plasmas can be dramatically different from a conventional magnetohydrodynamic fluid. The plasma is expected to stay locally marginal with respect to the instabilities, but how it does this remains an open question. Two models of magnetic field evolution are investigated. In the first, marginality is achieved via suppression of the rate of change of the field. In the second, the instabilities give rise to anomalous collisionality, reducing pressure anisotropy to marginal - at the same time decreasing viscosity and so increasing the turbulent rate of strain. Implications of these two models are studied in a simplified zero-dimensional setting. In the first model, the field grows explosively but on a time-scale that scales with the initial β, while in the second, dynamical field strength can be reached in one large-scale turbulence turnover time regardless of the initial seed. Both models produce very intermittent fields. Both also suffer from fairly strong constraints on their applicability: for typical cluster-core conditions, scale separation between the fluid motions (with account of suppressed viscous stress) and the miscoscale fluctuations break down at β ∼ 10⁴-10⁵. At larger β (weaker fields), a fully collisionless plasma dynamo theory is needed to justify field growth from a tiny primordial seed. However, the models discussed here are appropriate for studying the structure of the currently observed field as well as large-scale dynamics and thermodynamics of the magnetized ICM or similarly dilute astrophysical plasmas.