# Energy conversion in turbulent weakly-collisional plasmas: Eulerian Hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell simulations

## TL;DR

This paper uses Eulerian Hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell simulations to analyze energy conversion processes in turbulent weakly-collisional plasmas, revealing the role of pressure-strain interactions and local structures in proton kinetic effects.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that Eulerian HVM simulations can accurately track energy transfer and conversion in plasma turbulence, providing new insights into pressure-strain interactions and local structure correlations.

## Key findings

- Pressure-strain interaction drives proton temperature growth.
- Eulerian simulations are nearly noise-free and accurate.
- Strong-current, high-vorticity structures are linked to pressure-strain effects.

## Abstract

Kinetic simulations based on the Eulerian Hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell (HVM) formalism permit the examination of plasma turbulence with useful resolution of the proton velocity distribution function (VDF). The HVM model is employed here to study the balance of energy, focusing on channels of conversion that lead to proton kinetic effects, including growth of internal energy and temperature anisotropies. We show that this Eulerian simulation approach, which is almost noise-free, is able to provide an accurate energy balance for protons. The results demonstrate explicitly that the recovered temperature growth is directly related to the role of the pressure-strain interaction. Furthermore, analysis of local spatial correlations indicates that the pressure-strain interaction is qualitatively associated with strong-current, high-vorticity structures, although other local terms -- such as the heat flux -- weaken the correlation. These numerical capabilities based on the Eulerian approach will enable deeper study of transfer and conversion channels in weakly collisional Vlasov plasmas.