Evidence of Critical Balance in Kinetic Alfven Wave Turbulence Simulations

TL;DR

This study provides the first numerical evidence of critical balance in kinetic plasma turbulence, demonstrating an anisotropic cascade extending into the dissipation range through frequency domain analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of frequency domain analysis to confirm critical balance in kinetic turbulence simulations, aligning theoretical models with simulation data.

Findings

Excellent agreement between theory and simulation.

Evidence of anisotropic turbulence cascade into dissipation range.

First demonstration of critical balance in kinetic turbulence.

Abstract

A numerical simulation of kinetic plasma turbulence is performed to assess the applicability of critical balance to kinetic, dissipation scale turbulence. The analysis is performed in the frequency domain to obviate complications inherent in performing a local analysis of turbulence. A theoretical model of dissipation scale critical balance is constructed and compared to simulation results, and excellent agreement is found. This result constitutes the first evidence of critical balance in a kinetic turbulence simulation and provides evidence of an anisotropic turbulence cascade extending into the dissipation range. We also perform an Eulerian frequency analysis of the simulation data and compare it to the results of a previous study of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence simulations.