Particle-in-cell Simulations of Kinetic Range Plasma Turbulence: Does Microinstability Growth Lead to Intermittency?

Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations will be used to study the temporal evolution of kinetic range turbulence driven by microinstabilities in collisionless, homogeneous, magnetized plasmas. An ion temperature anisotropy (T-perp > T_||) yields enhanced fluctuating fields of the Alfven-cyclotron and ion mirror instabilities, both of which have maximum growth rates at wavelengths of the order of the ion inertial length. The statistical analyses presented here will utilize single-variable and joint probability density functions (PDFs) to study whether these microinstabilities can contribute to strongly intermittent kinetic range turbulence. Both 2.5D parallel PIC and 3D PIC simulations will be used (Gary et al., 2020).

Gary, S. P., Bandyopadhyay, R., Qudsi, R. A., Matthaeus, W. H., Maruca, B. A., Parashar, T. N., and Roytershteyn, V., "Particle-in-cell simulations of decaying plasma turbulence: Linear instabilities versus nonlinear processes in 2.5D approximations, Ap. J., submitted (2020).