Violation of the zeroth law of turbulence in space plasmas
Romain Meyrand, Jonathan Squire, Alexander A. Schekochihin, William, Dorland

TL;DR
This paper demonstrates that in strongly magnetized space plasma turbulence, the zeroth law of turbulence is violated due to a barrier at ion scales, leading to energy accumulation and spectral features matching observations.
Contribution
It reveals the violation of the zeroth law in space plasmas and introduces a barrier mechanism at ion scales caused by turbulence imbalance, supported by simulations and theoretical analysis.
Findings
Energy builds up at large scales in imbalanced turbulence.
Spectral features match in situ observations of space plasmas.
Barrier at ion scales influences plasma heating and spectral breaks.
Abstract
The zeroth law of turbulence states that, for fixed energy input into large-scale motions, the statistical steady state of a turbulent system is independent of microphysical dissipation properties. The behavior, which is fundamental to nearly all fluid-like systems from industrial processes to galaxies, occurs because nonlinear processes generate smaller and smaller scales in the flow, until the dissipation -- no matter how small -- can thermalize the energy input. Using direct numerical simulations and theoretical arguments, we show that in strongly magnetized plasma turbulence such as that recently observed by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) spacecraft, the zeroth law is routinely violated. Namely, when such turbulence is "imbalanced" -- when the large-scale energy input is dominated by Alfv\'en waves propagating in one direction (the most common situation in space plasmas) -- nonlinear…
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