Numerical comparison between a Gyrofluid and Gyrokinetic model investigating collisionless magnetic reconnection

The first detailed comparison between gyrokinetic and gyrofluid simulations of collisionless magnetic reconnection has been carried out. Both the linear and nonlinear evolution of the collisionless tearing mode have been analyzed. In the linear regime, we have found a good agreement between the two approaches over the whole spectrum of linearly unstable wave numbers, both in the drift kinetic limit and for finite ion temperature. Nonlinearly, focusing on the small-$\Delta '$ regime, with $\Delta '$ indicating the standard tearing stability parameter, we have compared relevant observables such as the evolution and saturation of the island width, as well as the island oscillation frequency in the saturated phase.The results are basically the same, with small discrepancies only in the value of the saturated island width for moderately high values of $\Delta '$. Therefore, in the regimes investigated here, the gyrofluid approach can describe the collisionless reconnection process as well as the more complete gyrokinetic model.Comment: Accepted for publication on Physics of Plasma

Nonlinear Low Noise Particle-in-cell Simulations of Electron Temperature Gradient Driven Turbulence

In this Letter, it is shown that global, nonlinear, particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of electron temperature driven turbulence recover the same level of transport as flux-tube codes when the level of statistical noise, associated with the PIC discretization, is sufficiently small. An efficient measure of the signal-to-noise ratio, applicable to every PIC code, is introduced. This diagnostic provides a direct measure of the quality of PIC simulations and allows for the validation of analytical estimates of the numerical noise. Global simulations for values of rho(*)(e)< 1/450 (normalized electron gyroradius) show no evidence of a gyro-Bohm scaling. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics