Cosmic ray diffusion in magnetic fields amplified by nonlinear turbulent dynamo

TL;DR

This study investigates how cosmic rays diffuse in magnetic fields amplified by nonlinear turbulent dynamo, revealing distinct diffusion regimes and the influence of magnetic inhomogeneity on cosmic ray confinement and energy dependence.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of three diffusion regimes for cosmic rays in dynamo-amplified magnetic fields and highlights the impact of magnetic inhomogeneity on their diffusion behavior.

Findings

Lower-energy CRs mainly undergo mirroring and wandering diffusion.

Higher-energy CRs predominantly experience magnetic moment scattering.

Magnetic field inhomogeneity causes spatially inhomogeneous CR diffusion.

Abstract

The diffusion of cosmic rays (CRs) in turbulent magnetic fields is fundamental to understand various astrophysical processes. We explore the CR diffusion in the magnetic fluctuations amplified by the nonlinear turbulent dynamo, in the absence of a strong mean magnetic field. Using test particle simulations, we identify three distinct CR diffusion regimes: mirroring, wandering, and magnetic moment scattering (MMS). With highly inhomogeneous distribution of the dynamo-amplified magnetic fields, we find that the diffusion of CRs is also spatially inhomogeneous. Our results reveal that lower-energy CRs preferentially undergo the mirror and wandering diffusion in the strong-field regions, and the MMS diffusion in the weak-field regions. The former two diffusion mechanisms play a more important role toward lower CR energies, resulting in a relatively weak energy dependence of the overall CR mean free path. In contrast, higher-energy CRs predominantly undergo the MMS diffusion, for which the incomplete particle gyration, i.e., the limit case of mirroring, in strong fields has a more significant effect than the scattering by small-scale field tangling/reversal. Compared with lower-energy CRs, they are more poorly confined in space, and their mean free paths have a stronger energy dependence. We stress the fundamental role of magnetic field inhomogeneity of nonlinear turbulent dynamo in causing the different diffusion behavior of CRs compared to that in sub-Alfv\'enic MHD turbulence.