Turbulent transport and heating of trace heavy ions in hot, magnetized plasmas

TL;DR

This paper derives scaling laws for the transport and heating of trace heavy ions in magnetized plasma turbulence, validating them with numerical simulations and revealing mass-dependent heating and transport behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces new scaling laws for heavy ion transport and heating in turbulent plasmas, supported by numerical validation and analysis of mass and charge effects.

Findings

Heavy ion momentum transport increases with mass.

Heavy ions are preferentially heated in turbulent plasmas.

Mass-dependent ion temperature emerges in weakly collisional plasmas.

Abstract

Scaling laws for the transport and heating of trace heavy ions in low-frequency, magnetized plasma turbulence are derived and compared with direct numerical simulations. The predicted dependences of turbulent fluxes and heating on ion charge and mass number are found to agree with numerical results for both stationary and differentially rotating plasmas. Heavy ion momentum transport is found to increase with mass, and heavy ions are found to be preferentially heated, implying a mass-dependent ion temperature for very weakly collisional plasmas and for partially-ionized heavy ions in strongly rotating plasmas.