4,510 research outputs found
The interaction between transpolar arcs and cusp spots
Transpolar arcs and cusp spots are both auroral phenomena which occur when
the interplanetary magnetic field is northward. Transpolar arcs are associated
with magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail, which closes magnetic flux and
results in a "wedge" of closed flux which remains trapped, embedded in the
magnetotail lobe. The cusp spot is an indicator of lobe reconnection at the
high-latitude magnetopause; in its simplest case, lobe reconnection
redistributes open flux without resulting in any net change in the open flux
content of the magnetosphere. We present observations of the two phenomena
interacting--i.e., a transpolar arc intersecting a cusp spot during part of its
lifetime. The significance of this observation is that lobe reconnection can
have the effect of opening closed magnetotail flux. We argue that such events
should not be rare
Temperature Evolution of the Quantum Gap in CsNiCl3
Neutron scattering measurements on the one-dimensional gapped S=1
antiferromagnet, CsNiCl3, have shown that the excitation corresponding to the
Haldane mass gap Delta at low temperatures persists as a resonant feature to
high temperatures. We find that the strong upward renormalisation of the gap
excitation, by a factor of three between 5 and 70K, is more than enough to
overcome its decreasing lifetime. We find that the gap lifetime is
substantially shorter than that predicted by the scaling theory of Damle and
Sachdev in its low temperature range of validity. The upward gap
renormalisation agrees with the non-linear sigma model at low temperatures and
even up to T of order 2Delta provided an upper mass cutoff is included.Comment: Latex, 3 figures, accepted by Pysical Review
Kinetic Simulations of Magnetized Turbulence in Astrophysical Plasmas
This letter presents the first ab initio, fully electromagnetic, kinetic
simulations of magnetized turbulence in a homogeneous, weakly collisional
plasma at the scale of the ion Larmor radius (ion gyroscale). Magnetic and
electric-field energy spectra show a break at the ion gyroscale; the spectral
slopes are consistent with scaling predictions for critically balanced
turbulence of Alfven waves above the ion gyroscale (spectral index -5/3) and of
kinetic Alfven waves below the ion gyroscale (spectral indices of -7/3 for
magnetic and -1/3 for electric fluctuations). This behavior is also
qualitatively consistent with in situ measurements of turbulence in the solar
wind. Our findings support the hypothesis that the frequencies of turbulent
fluctuations in the solar wind remain well below the ion cyclotron frequency
both above and below the ion gyroscale.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter
Model of two-fluid reconnection
A theoretical model of quasi-stationary, two-dimensional magnetic
reconnection is presented in the framework of incompressible two-fluid
magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). The results are compared with recent numerical
simulations and experiment.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, accepted to Physical Review Letter
Magnetic excitations of spin and orbital moments in cobalt oxide
Magnetic and phonon excitations in the antiferromagnet CoO with an unquenched
orbital angular momentum are studied by neutron scattering. Results of energy
scans in several Brillouin zones in the (HHL) plane for energy transfers up to
16 THz are presented. The measurements were performed in the antiferromagnetic
ordered state at 6 K (well below TN~290 K) as well as in the paramagnetic state
at 450 K. Several magnetic excitation modes are identified from the dependence
of their intensity on wavevector and temperature. Within a Hund's rule model
the excitations correspond to fluctuations of coupled orbital and spin degrees
of freedom whose bandwidth is controlled by interionic superexchange. The
different ordering domains give rise to several magnetic peaks at each
wavevector transfer.Comment: Accepted for publication in Canadian Journal of Physic
Nonlinear phase mixing and phase-space cascade of entropy in gyrokinetic plasma turbulence
Electrostatic turbulence in weakly collisional, magnetized plasma can be
interpreted as a cascade of entropy in phase space, which is proposed as a
universal mechanism for dissipation of energy in magnetized plasma turbulence.
When the nonlinear decorrelation time at the scale of the thermal Larmor radius
is shorter than the collision time, a broad spectrum of fluctuations at
sub-Larmor scales is numerically found in velocity and position space, with
theoretically predicted scalings. The results are important because they
identify what is probably a universal Kolmogorov-like regime for kinetic
turbulence; and because any physical process that produces fluctuations of the
gyrophase-independent part of the distribution function may, via the entropy
cascade, result in turbulent heating at a rate that increases with the
fluctuation amplitude, but is independent of the collision frequency.Comment: Revtex, 4 pages, 3 figures; replaced to match published versio
Two and Three Dimensional Incommensurate Modulation in Optimally-Doped BiSrCaCuO
X-ray scattering measurements on optimally-doped single crystal samples of
the high temperature superconductor BiSrCaCuO reveal
the presence of three distinct incommensurate charge modulations, each
involving a roughly fivefold increase in the unit cell dimension along the {\bf
b}-direction. The strongest scattering comes from the well known (H, K
0.21, L) modulation and its harmonics. However, we also observe broad
diffraction which peak up at the L values complementary to those which
characterize the known modulated structure. These diffraction features
correspond to correlation lengths of roughly a unit cell dimension,
20 in the {\bf c} direction, and of 185
parallel to the incommensurate wavevector. We interpret these features as
arising from three dimensional incommensurate domains and the interfaces
between them, respectively. In addition we investigate the recently discovered
incommensuate modulations which peak up at (1/2, K 0.21, L) and related
wavevectors. Here we explicitly study the L-dependence of this scattering and
see that these charge modulations are two dimensional in nature with weak
correlations on the scale of a bilayer thickness, and that they correspond to
short range, isotropic correlation lengths within the basal plane. We relate
these new incommensurate modulations to the electronic nanostructure observed
in BiSrCaCuO using STM topography.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Multiscale Gyrokinetics for Rotating Tokamak Plasmas: Fluctuations, Transport and Energy Flows
This paper presents a complete theoretical framework for plasma turbulence
and transport in tokamak plasmas. The fundamental scale separations present in
plasma turbulence are codified as an asymptotic expansion in the ratio of the
gyroradius to the equilibrium scale length. Proceeding order-by-order in this
expansion, a framework for plasma turbulence is developed. It comprises an
instantaneous equilibrium, the fluctuations driven by gradients in the
equilibrium quantities, and the transport-timescale evolution of mean profiles
of these quantities driven by the fluctuations. The equilibrium distribution
functions are local Maxwellians with each flux surface rotating toroidally as a
rigid body. The magnetic equillibrium is obtained from the Grad-Shafranov
equation for a rotating plasma and the slow (resistive) evolution of the
magnetic field is given by an evolution equation for the safety factor q.
Large-scale deviations of the distribution function from a Maxwellian are given
by neoclassical theory. The fluctuations are determined by the high-flow
gyrokinetic equation, from which we derive the governing principle for
gyrokinetic turbulence in tokamaks: the conservation and local cascade of free
energy. Transport equations for the evolution of the mean density, temperature
and flow velocity profiles are derived. These transport equations show how the
neoclassical corrections and the fluctuations act back upon the mean profiles
through fluxes and heating. The energy and entropy conservation laws for the
mean profiles are derived. Total energy is conserved and there is no net
turbulent heating. Entropy is produced by the action of fluxes flattening
gradients, Ohmic heating, and the equilibration of mean temperatures. Finally,
this framework is condensed, in the low-Mach-number limit, to a concise set of
equations suitable for numerical implementation.Comment: 113 pages, 3 figure
Dissipation-Scale Turbulence in the Solar Wind
We present a cascade model for turbulence in weakly collisional plasmas that
follows the nonlinear cascade of energy from the large scales of driving in the
MHD regime to the small scales of the kinetic Alfven wave regime where the
turbulence is dissipated by kinetic processes. Steady-state solutions of the
model for the slow solar wind yield three conclusions: (1) beyond the observed
break in the magnetic energy spectrum, one expects an exponential cut-off; (2)
the widely held interpretation that this dissipation range obeys power-law
behavior is an artifact of instrumental sensitivity limitations; and, (3) over
the range of parameters relevant to the solar wind, the observed variation of
dissipation range spectral indices from -2 to -4 is naturally explained by the
varying effectiveness of Landau damping, from an undamped prediction of -7/3 to
a strongly damped index around -4.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in AIP Conference
Proceedings on "Turbulence and Nonlinear Processes in Astrophysical Plasmas
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