Cross-field transport in Goldreich-Sridhar MHD turbulence

TL;DR

This paper analytically investigates how charged particles move perpendicular to magnetic fields in anisotropic Goldreich-Sridhar turbulence, revealing energy-dependent transport behaviors relevant for solar wind and space physics.

Contribution

It provides an analytical derivation of particle perpendicular transport in Goldreich-Sridhar turbulence, incorporating multi-spacecraft constraints and comparing different transport mechanisms.

Findings

Particles decorrelate from field lines at small scales with no diffusion.

Perpendicular displacement from field line tangling dominates at small energies.

Gradient/curvature drift causes significant longitudinal spread at higher energies.

Abstract

I derive analytically the temporal dependence of the perpendicular transport coefficient of a charged particle in the three-dimensional anisotropic turbulence conjectured by Goldreich-Sridhar by implementing multi-spacecraft constraints on the turbulence power spectrum. The particle motion away from the turbulent local field line is assessed as gradient/curvature drift of the guiding-center and compared with the magnetic field line random walk. At inertial scales much smaller than the turbulence outer scale, particles decorrelate from field lines in a free-streaming motion, with no diffusion. In the solar wind at $1$ AU, for energy sufficiently small ($< 1$ keV protons), the perpendicular average displacement due to field line tangling generally dominates over two decades of turbulent scales. However, for higher energies ($\simeq 25$ MeV protons) within the range of multi-spacecraft measurements, the longitudinal spread originating from transport due to gradient/curvature drift reaches up to $\simeq 10^\circ- 20^\circ$. This result highlights the role of the perpendicular transport in the interpretation of interplanetary and interstellar data.