286 research outputs found
Effects of electron inertia in collisionless magnetic reconnection
We present a study of collisionless magnetic reconnection within the
framework of full two-fluid MHD for a completely ionized hydrogen plasma,
retaining the effects of the Hall current, electron pressure and electron
inertia. We performed 2.5D simulations using a pseudo-spectral code with no
dissipative effects. We check that the ideal invariants of the problem are
conserved down to round-off errors. Our results show that the change in the
topology of the magnetic field lines is exclusively due to the presence of
electron inertia. The computed reconnection rates remain a fair fraction of the
Alfv\'en velocity, which therefore qualifies as fast reconnection
Energy spectrum, dissipation and spatial structures in reduced Hall magnetohydrodynamic
We analyze the effect of the Hall term in the magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
under a strong externally supported magnetic field, seeing how this changes the
energy cascade, the characteristic scales of the flow and the dynamics of
global magnitudes, with particular interest in the dissipation.
Numerical simulations of freely evolving three-dimensional reduced
magnetohydrodynamics (RHMHD) are performed, for different values of the Hall
parameter (the ratio of the ion skin depth to the macroscopic scale of the
turbulence) controlling the impact of the Hall term. The Hall effect modifies
the transfer of energy across scales, slowing down the transfer of energy from
the large scales up to the Hall scale (ion skin depth) and carrying faster the
energy from the Hall scale to smaller scales. The final outcome is an effective
shift of the dissipation scale to larger scales but also a development of
smaller scales. Current sheets (fundamental structures for energy dissipation)
are affected in two ways by increasing the Hall effect, with a widening but at
the same time generating an internal structure within them. In the case where
the Hall term is sufficiently intense, the current sheet is fully delocalized.
The effect appears to reduce impulsive effects in the flow, making it less
intermittent.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure
Intermittency in Hall-magnetohydrodynamics with a strong guide field
We present a detailed study of intermittency in the velocity and magnetic
field fluctuations of compressible Hall-magnetohydrodynamic turbulence with an
external guide field. To solve the equations numerically, a reduced model valid
when a strong guide field is present is used. Different values for the ion skin
depth are considered in the simulations. The resulting data is analyzed
computing field increments in several directions perpendicular to the guide
field, and building structure functions and probability density functions. In
the magnetohydrodynamic limit we recover the usual results with the magnetic
field being more intermittent than the velocity field. In the presence of the
Hall effect, field fluctuations at scales smaller than the ion skin depth show
a substantial decrease in the level of intermittency, with close to monofractal
scaling.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Magnetic field reversals and long-time memory in conducting flows
Employing a simple ideal magnetohydrodynamic model in spherical geometry,we
show that the presence of either rotation or finite magnetic helicity is
sufficient to induce dynamical reversals of the magnetic dipole moment. The
statistical character of the model is similar to that of terrestrial magnetic
field reversals, with the similarity being stronger when rotation is
present.The connection between long time correlations, noise, and
statistics of reversals is supported, consistent with earlier suggestions.Comment: accepted in Physical Review
Test-particle acceleration in a hierarchical three-dimensional turbulence model
The acceleration of charged particles is relevant to the solar corona over a
broad range of scales and energies. High-energy particles are usually detected
in concomitance with large energy release events like solar eruptions and
flares, nevertheless acceleration can occur at smaller scales, characterized by
dynamical activity near current sheets. To gain insight into the complex
scenario of coronal charged particle acceleration, we investigate the
properties of acceleration with a test-particle approach using
three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models. These are obtained from
direct solutions of the reduced MHD equations, well suited for a plasma
embedded in a strong axial magnetic field, relevant to the inner heliosphere. A
multi-box, multi-scale technique is used to solve the equations of motion for
protons. This method allows us to resolve an extended range of scales present
in the system, namely from the ion inertial scale of the order of a meter up to
macroscopic scales of the order of km (th of the outer scale of
the system). This new technique is useful to identify the mechanisms that,
acting at different scales, are responsible for acceleration to high energies
of a small fraction of the particles in the coronal plasma. We report results
that describe acceleration at different stages over a broad range of time,
length and energy scales.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, ApJ (in press
Thermodynamic ground states of platinum metal nitrides
The thermodynamic stabilities of various phases of the nitrides of the
platinum metal elements are systematically studied using density functional
theory. It is shown that for the nitrides of Rh, Pd, Ir and Pt two new crystal
structures, in which the metal ions occupy simple tetragonal lattice sites,
have lower formation enthalpies at ambient conditions than any previously
proposed structures. The region of stability with respect to those structures
extends to 17 GPa for PtN2. Calculations show that the PtN2 simple tetragonal
structures at this pressure are thermodynamically stable also with respect to
phase separation. The fact that the local density and generalized gradient
approximations predict different values of the absolute formation enthalpies as
well different relative stabilities between simple tetragonal and the pyrite or
marcasite structures are further discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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