A Magnetic Analog of Pressure-Strain Interaction

TL;DR

This paper introduces a magnetic stress-strain interaction term in magnetized plasmas, analogous to pressure-strain interaction, to better interpret magnetic energy evolution in various plasma phenomena.

Contribution

It defines and analyzes a new magnetic stress-strain interaction term, providing a novel analogy to pressure-strain interaction for understanding magnetic energy dynamics.

Findings

The magnetic stress-strain interaction is analogous to pressure-strain interaction.

Decomposition methods for the magnetic stress-strain interaction are developed.

Simulation results illustrate the role of these terms in magnetic reconnection.

Abstract

We study the evolution equation for magnetic energy density for a non-relativistic magnetized plasma in the (Lagrangian) reference frame comoving with the electron bulk velocity. Analyzing the terms that arise due to the ideal electric field, namely perpendicular electron compression and magnetic field line bending, we recast them to reveal a quantity with a functional form analogous to the often-studied pressure-strain interaction term that describes one piece of internal energy density evolution of the species in a plasma, except with the species pressure tensor replaced by the magnetic stress tensor. We dub it the "magnetic stress-strain interaction." We discuss decompositions of the magnetic stress-strain interaction analogous to those used for pressure-strain interaction. These analogies facilitate the interpretation of the evolution of the various forms of energy in magnetized plasmas, and should be useful for a wide array of applications including magnetic reconnection, turbulence, collisionless shocks, and wave-particle interactions. We display and analyze all the terms that can change magnetic energy density in the Lagrangian reference frame using a particle-in-cell simulation of magnetic reconnection.