Turbulent dynamo in a collisionless plasma

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through advanced kinetic simulations that collisionless plasmas can sustain a turbulent dynamo, potentially explaining the origin of cosmic magnetic fields and highlighting the importance of kinetic physics in astrophysical plasma dynamics.

Contribution

First fully kinetic simulations show magnetic-field amplification via dynamo in collisionless plasma, bridging a gap in understanding cosmic magnetic field generation.

Findings

Dynamo effect occurs in collisionless plasma with stochastic driving.

Magnetic field amplification self-accelerates and involves kinetic instabilities.

Results support the role of plasma dynamo in astrophysical magnetic field evolution.

Abstract

Magnetic fields pervade the entire Universe and affect the formation and evolution of astrophysical systems from cosmological to planetary scales. The generation and dynamical amplification of extragalactic magnetic fields through cosmic times, up to $\mu$Gauss levels reported in nearby galaxy clusters, near equipartition with kinetic energy of plasma motions and on scales of at least tens of kiloparsecs, is a major puzzle largely unconstrained by observations. A dynamo effect converting kinetic flow energy into magnetic energy is often invoked in that context, however extragalactic plasmas are weakly collisional (as opposed to magnetohydrodynamic fluids), and whether magnetic-field growth and sustainment through an efficient turbulent dynamo instability is possible in such plasmas is not established. Fully kinetic numerical simulations of the Vlasov equation in a six-dimensional phase space necessary to answer this question have until recently remained beyond computational capabilities. Here, we show by means of such simulations that magnetic-field amplification via a dynamo instability does occur in a stochastically-driven, non-relativistic subsonic flow of initially unmagnetized collisionless plasma. We also find that the dynamo self-accelerates and becomes entangled with kinetic instabilities as magnetization increases. The results suggest that such a plasma dynamo may be realizable in laboratory experiments, support the idea that intracluster medium (ICM) turbulence may have significantly contributed to the amplification of cluster magnetic fields up to near-equipartition levels on a timescale shorter than the Hubble time, and emphasize the crucial role of multiscale kinetic physics in high-energy astrophysical plasmas.