Strong Coupling of Alfv\'en and Fast Modes in Compressible Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence in Magnetically-Dominated Plasmas

TL;DR

This study reveals a universal strong coupling between Alfvén and fast modes in relativistic Poynting-dominated plasma turbulence, challenging traditional non-relativistic turbulence models and impacting particle acceleration and emission processes.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of a strong-coupling regime between Alfvén and fast modes in relativistic turbulence through numerical simulations, highlighting its universality and insensitivity to temperature.

Findings

Fast mode energy increases with the plasma's sigma parameter.

Mode conversion between Alfvén and fast modes is nearly temperature-independent.

Fast mode dominated turbulence can develop into a strong-coupling regime.

Abstract

In this paper, we report our detailed analysis of the new strong-coupling regime between Alfv\'en and fast modes in Poynting-dominated plasma turbulence, reported in our previous work Takamoto & Lazarian (2016), which is an important effect for many relativistic plasma phenomena, and calls for new theories of Poynting-dominated MHD turbulence. We performed numerical simulations of relativistic MHD turbulence in isothermal plasmas, and analyzed the ratio of fast to Alfv\'en mode energy. We found that the increase of the fast mode with the background $\sigma$-parameter can be observed even in isothermal plasma, showing that such a phenomena is universal in trans-Alfv\'enic turbulence in Poynting-dominated plasmas. To study the detailed energy conversion process, we also performed a series of simulations of decaying turbulence injecting pure Alfv\'en, fast, and slow modes, respectively, and investigated the development of the mode conversion from the each mode. We also found that the mode conversion between Alfv\'en and fast modes is nearly insensitive to the background temperature. Finally, we report a result of a simulation with initially fast mode dominated turbulence. It developed into a temporally strong-coupling regime, which is a strong evidence for the existence of our suggesting strong-coupling regime of fast and Alfv\'en modes. Our result suggests that the strong turbulence in Poynting-dominated plasma is very different from that in the non-relativistic plasma. It will also give an important guidance to studies of particle acceleration and non-thermal photon emission from Poynting-dominated plasma.