Diffusion of energetic particles in turbulent MHD plasmas

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to analyze how energetic particles move through turbulent magnetohydrodynamic plasmas, revealing deviations from traditional quasi-linear theory and providing insights relevant to heliospheric conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical approach to simulate energetic particle transport in turbulent MHD plasmas using realistic heliospheric parameters, highlighting deviations from existing theories.

Findings

Transport parameters are quantified in turbulent MHD conditions.

Deviations from quasi-linear theory are identified.

Implications for particle propagation in the heliosphere are discussed.

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the transport of energetic particles in turbulent plasmas. A numerical approach is used to simulate the effect of the background plasma on the motion of energetic protons. The background plasma is in a dynamically turbulent state found from numerical MHD simulations, where we use parameters typical for the heliosphere. The implications for the transport parameters (i.e. pitch-angle diffusion coefficients and mean free path) are calculated and deviations from the quasi-linear theory are discussed.