In honour of the 50th anniversary of the influential review/monograph on plasma turbulence by B. B. Kadomtsev as well as the seminal works of T. H. Dupree and J. Weinstock on resonance-broadening theory, an introductory tutorial is given about some highlights of the statistical–dynamical description of turbulent plasmas and fluids, including the ideas of nonlinear incoherent noise, coherent damping, and self-consistent dielectric response. The statistical closure problem is introduced. Incoherent noise and coherent damping are illustrated with a solvable model of passive advection. Self-consistency introduces turbulent polarization effects that are described by the dielectric function ${\mathcal{D}}$. Dupree’s method of using ${\mathcal{D}}$ to estimate the saturation level of turbulence is described; then it is explained why a more complete theory that includes nonlinear noise is required. The general theory is best formulated in terms of Dyson equations for the covariance $C$ and an infinitesimal response function $R$, which subsumes ${\mathcal{D}}$. An important example is the direct-interaction approximation (DIA). It is shown how to use Novikov’s theorem to develop an $\boldsymbol{x}$-space approach to the DIA that is complementary to the original $\boldsymbol{k}$-space approach of Kraichnan. A dielectric function is defined for arbitrary quadratically nonlinear systems, including the Navier–Stokes equation, and an algorithm for determining the form of ${\mathcal{D}}$ in the DIA is sketched. The independent insights of Kadomtsev and Kraichnan about the problem of the DIA with random Galilean invariance are described. The mixing-length formula for drift-wave saturation is discussed in the context of closures that include nonlinear noise (shielded by ${\mathcal{D}}$). The role of $R$ in the calculation of the symmetry-breaking (zonostrophic) instability of homogeneous turbulence to the generation of inhomogeneous mean flows is addressed. The second-order cumulant expansion and the stochastic structural stability theory are also discussed in that context. Various historical research threads are mentioned and representative entry points to the literature are given. Some outstanding conceptual issues are enumerated.

JET experiments have compared the efficacy of low- and high-field side ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) as an actuator to deliberately minimise the sawtooth period. It is found that low-field side ICRH with low minority concentration is optimal for sawtooth control for two main reasons. Firstly, low-field side heating means that any toroidal phasing of the ICRH ($-90^{\circ }$, $+90^{\circ }$ or dipole) has a destabilising effect on the sawteeth, meaning that dipole phasing can be employed, since this is preferable due to less plasma wall interaction from Resonant Frequency (RF) sheaths. Secondly, the resonance position of the low-field side ICRH does not have to be very accurately placed to achieve sawtooth control, relaxing the requirement for real-time control of the RF frequency. These empirical observations have been confirmed by hybrid kinetic–magnetohydrodynamic modelling, and suggest that the ICRH antenna design for ITER is well positioned to provide a control actuator capable of having a significant effect on the sawtooth behaviour.

Recent advances in dynamo theory have been made by examining the competition between small- and large-scale dynamos at high magnetic Reynolds number $\mathit{Rm}$. Small-scale dynamos rely on the presence of chaotic stretching whilst the generation of large-scale fields occurs in flows lacking reflectional symmetry via a systematic electromotive force (EMF). In this paper we discuss how the statistics of the EMF (at high $\mathit{Rm}$) depend on the properties of the multi-scale velocity that is generating it. In particular, we determine that different scales of flow have different contributions to the statistics of the EMF, with smaller scales contributing to the mean without increasing the variance. Moreover, we determine when scales in such a flow act independently in their contribution to the EMF. We further examine the role of large-scale shear in modifying the EMF. We conjecture that the distribution of the EMF, and not simply the mean, largely determines the dominant scale of the magnetic field generated by the flow.

Statistical characteristics of plasma fluctuations in the solar wind (SW), the Earth’s magnetosphere and fusion devices are reviewed. The turbulence in all these media has a complicated multiscale structure and exhibits a generalized self-similarity in an extended scale range. The anomalous transport of mass and momentum is intermittent and is carried by sporadic plasma flux bursts with non-Gaussian statistics, long-range correlation and multifractality. Intermittent turbulent transport is characterized by superdiffusion with power law $\langle {\it\delta}x^{2}\rangle \propto {\it\tau}^{{\it\alpha}}$, ${\it\alpha}\approx 1.2{-}1.8$. The structure functions in all these plasma environments are well fitted by the log-Poisson model of turbulence. Intermittent plasma turbulence displays universal properties and consists of quasi-1-D singular dissipative structures.

In previous galactic dynamo theories of the origin of the magnetic field in our galaxy, the subject of flux-freezing has been omitted. As a consequence, the equation of mass flow has generally also been omitted, particularly in the halo where the galactic gravitational field will operate on the mass flow. In this paper, it has been shown that this neglect could have serious consequences for the results obtained from those galactic dynamo simulations that include the halo. A modification of these dynamo theories is proposed which involves the expulsion of very small pieces of the magnetic field lines, rather than the wholesale expulsion of the complete magnetic lines encapsulated in the previous theories. This expulsion is accomplished by a spike instability that arises from superbubbles when they break out of the galactic disc and their shells fragment. This leads to a cut in the lines of force that still remain in the disc. Subsequently, normal disc turbulence rotates the cut lines and thus dissipates their mean flux, removing them from a role in the dynamo theory. This new process takes a length of time comparable to, but slightly longer than, the previous growth time of the disc dynamo, but avoids the previous difficulties associated with flux freezing and flux expulsion.

Immersed boundary methods for computing confined fluid and plasma flows in complex geometries are reviewed. The mathematical principle of the volume penalization technique is described and simple examples for imposing Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions in one dimension are given. Applications for fluid and plasma turbulence in two and three space dimensions illustrate the applicability and the efficiency of the method in computing flows in complex geometries, for example in toroidal geometries with asymmetric poloidal cross-sections.

Wavelet analysis and compression tools are reviewed and different applications for the study of MHD and plasma turbulence are presented. We introduce the continuous and the orthogonal wavelet transform and detail several statistical diagnostics based on the wavelet coefficients. We then show how to extract coherent structures out of fully developed turbulent flows using wavelet-based denoising. Finally some multiscale numerical simulation schemes using wavelets are described. Several examples for analysing, compressing and computing one-, two- and three-dimensional turbulent MHD or plasma flows are presented.

The Sun is a giant particle accelerator. During solar flares, magnetic field energy stored in the corona is suddenly released and transferred to local heating of the coronal plasma, mass motions (e.g. jets) and the generation of energetic particles, i.e. electrons, protons and heavy ions. Basically, a flare occurs as a local enhancement of the emission of electromagnetic radiation from the radio up to the ${\it\gamma}$-ray range on the Sun. That indicates the production of energetic electrons during flares. NASA’s RHESSI mission has the aim to investigate electron acceleration processes by studying the Sun’s X-ray and ${\it\gamma}$-ray emission with high spatial, temporal and spectral resolution, i.e. by means of imaging spectroscopy. A substantial part of the energy released during a flare is carried by these energetic electrons. Apart from them, solar energetic particles, i.e. protons and heavy ions, and coronal mass ejections play an important role in the energy budget of a flare. Here, we focus on electron acceleration. The way in which $10^{36}$ electrons are accelerated up to energies beyond 30 keV is one of the open questions in solar physics. A flare is considered as the manifestation of magnetic reconnection in the solar corona. Which mechanisms lead to the production of energetic electrons in the magnetic reconnection region is discussed in this paper. Two of them are described in more detail.

The behaviour of runaway electrons have been investigated in lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) and electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) plasmas as well as the LHCD only plasmas in the HL-2A tokamak. The fast electrons generated by lower hybrid waves (LHWs) and electron cyclotron waves (ECWs) can act as a seed population for runaway electrons. In the LHCD only discharges, a large number of runaway electrons are produced after the termination of lower hybrid (LH) power by conversion of fast electrons into runaway electrons due to the fast electron tail which extends above the runaway critical energy. However, in contrast to LHCD only discharges, during the simultaneous application of LHCD and ECCD discharges, runaway electrons cannot be created by the termination of LH power when the ECCD is on duty. The runaway production is observed to be enhanced until the EC power termination. The loop voltage increase due to the termination of EC power gives rise to a decline in the critical runaway energy, which leads to some of the energetic fast electrons converting into runaway electrons via the acceleration from the toroidal electric field. That is, the fast electrons created by waves can be accelerated into the runaway regime due to the Dreicer process.

The effects of an imposed, axial magnetic field $B_{z0}$ on hydrodynamics and energetic electrons in inertial confinement fusion indirect-drive hohlraums are studied. We present simulations from the radiation-hydrodynamics code HYDRA of a low-adiabat ignition design for the National Ignition Facility, with and without $B_{z0}=70~\text{T}$. The field’s main hydrodynamic effect is to significantly reduce electron thermal conduction perpendicular to the field. This results in hotter and less dense plasma on the equator between the capsule and hohlraum wall. The inner laser beams experience less inverse bremsstrahlung absorption before reaching the wall. The X-ray drive is thus stronger from the equator with the imposed field. We study superthermal, or ‘hot’, electron dynamics with the particle-in-cell code ZUMA, using plasma conditions from HYDRA. During the early-time laser picket, hot electrons based on two-plasmon decay in the laser entrance hole (Regan et al., Phys. Plasmas, vol. 17(2), 2010, 020703) are guided to the capsule by a 70 T field. Twelve times more energy deposits in the deuterium–tritium fuel. For plasma conditions early in peak laser power, we present mono-energetic test-case studies with ZUMA  as well as sources based on inner-beam stimulated Raman scattering. The effect of the field on deuterium–tritium deposition depends strongly on the source location, namely whether hot electrons are generated on field lines that connect to the capsule.

In the last few years it has been demonstrated, both by data analysis and by numerical simulations, that the transport of energetic particles in the presence of magnetic turbulence can be superdiffusive rather than normal diffusive (Gaussian). The term ‘superdiffusive’ refers to the mean square displacement of particle positions growing superlinearly with time, as compared to the normal linear growth. The so-called anomalous transport, which in general comprises both subdiffusion and superdiffusion, has gained growing attention during the last two decades in many fields including laboratory plasma physics, and recently in astrophysics and space physics. Here we show a number of examples, both from laboratory and from astrophysical plasmas, where superdiffusive transport has been identified, with a focus on what could be the main influence of superdiffusion on fundamental processes like diffusive shock acceleration and heliospheric energetic particle propagation. For laboratory plasmas, superdiffusion appears to be due to the presence of electrostatic turbulence which creates long-range correlations and convoluted structures in perpendicular transport: this corresponds to a similar phenomenon in the propagation of solar energetic particles (SEPs) which leads to SEP dropouts. For the propagation of energetic particles accelerated at interplanetary shocks in the solar wind, parallel superdiffusion seems to be prevailing; this is based on a pitch-angle scattering process different from that envisaged by quasi-linear theory, and this emphasizes the importance of nonlinear interactions and trapping effects. In the case of supernova remnant shocks, parallel superdiffusion is possible at quasi-parallel shocks, as occurring in the interplanetary space, and perpendicular superdiffusion is possible at quasi-perpendicular shocks, as corresponding to Richardson diffusion: therefore, cosmic ray acceleration at supernova remnant shocks should be formulated in terms of superdiffusion. The possible relations among anomalous transport in laboratory, heliospheric, and astrophysical plasmas will be indicated.

In this work we discuss an application of the Tetrad Dynamics approach, a stochastic dynamical theory already introduced in hydrodynamic turbulence, to incompressible magneto-hydrodynamics. This theoretical framework is capable of taking into account some crucial aspects of turbulent plasmas, namely, (i) its material nature, which is stressed through the adoption of Lagrangian variables, (ii) its probabilistic dynamics, which is fundamental to understand the intermittency and highly irregular nature of turbulence, and (iii) the multi-scale character of interactions, which is approached by promoting the space size of parcels to the role of a dynamical variable. In particular, here, we construct the probabilistic equations of motion for quantities describing the evolution of a turbulent plasma (a matrix ${\bf\varrho}$ describing the parcel’s shape, the plasma velocity and magnetic field coarse-grained gradient tensors, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D648}$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D652}$), resorting the functional formalism of classical statistical dynamics. Through the introduction of a stochastic action and using a path integral approach, the statistical properties of $({\bf\varrho},\unicode[STIX]{x1D648},\unicode[STIX]{x1D652})$ can be derived from those of noises appearing in their equations of motion, both at equilibrium and out of equilibrium.

Thanks to the presence of a transverse magnetic flux density ($B_{x}$ and $B_{y}$ where $z$ is the extraction axis), the undesired extraction of electrons from a negative ion source is reduced and it is due to collisions. The electron transport is studied with a kinetic model, including Vlasov–Poisson effects and atomic collisions. The integrodifferential equations (IDE) resulting from a reduction to a one-dimensional problem (1-D) by integration on characteristic orbits are strongly affected by the trapped orbits, as here evaluated; a kernel calculation with a partial wave approximation is introduced. Dependencies from the local drift velocity $v_{d}$ and effective Larmor radius $L_{e}$ are found. Solutions are investigated in simple cases with a constant electron current (no additional electron production). Equilibrium solution and electron conductivity are analytically obtained. Presheath solutions are discussed; the approximated conversion to differential equations that are adequate for presheath only (with moderated electric field gradient $E_{z,z}>-eB_{x}^{2}/m$) and their numeric solutions coupled to Poisson equation are reported, and compared to iterative IDE solutions. Examples with different values of $L_{e}$ and mean free path (mfp) ratio are described.

In this paper, we analyse the linear stability of a stellar accretion disk having a stratified morphology. The study is performed in the framework of ideal magneto-hydrodynamics and therefore results in a characterization of the linear unstable magneto-rotational modes. The peculiarity of the present scenario consists of adopting the magnetic flux function as the basic dynamical variable. Such a representation of the dynamics allows us to take account of the co-rotation theorem as a fundamental feature of the ideal plasma equilibrium and to evaluate its impact on the perturbation evolution. According to the Alfvenic nature of the magneto-rotational instability, we consider an incompressible plasma profile and perturbations propagating along the background magnetic field. Furthermore, we develop a local perturbation analysis around fiducial coordinates of the background configuration and deal with very small-scale linear dynamics in comparison to the background inhomogeneity size. The main issue of the present study is that the condition for the emergence of unstable modes is the same in the stratified plasma disk as in the case of a thin configuration. Such a feature is the result of the cancellation of the vertical derivative of the disk angular frequency from the dispersion relation, which implies that only the radial profile of the differential rotation is responsible for the trigger of the growing modes.

We present a three-dimensional (3-D) particle-in-cell (PIC) model and parallel code for the self-consistent motion of charged ultrarelativistic beams (${\it\gamma}\sim 10^{3}{-}10^{5}$) in supercolliders. We use the 3-D set of Maxwell’s equations for the electromagnetic fields, and the Vlasov equation for the distribution function of the beam particles. The model incorporates automatically the longitudinal effects, which can play a significant role in the cases of super-high densities. We present numerical results for the dynamics of two focused ultrarelativistic beams with a size ratio 10:1:100. The results demonstrate high efficiency of the proposed computational methods and algorithms, which are applicable to a variety of problems in relativistic plasma physics.

We revise the applications of self-organized criticality (SOC) as a paradigmatic model for tokamak plasma turbulence. The work, presented here, is built around the idea that some systems do not develop a pure critical state associable with SOC, since their dynamical evolution involves as a competing key factor an inverse cascade of the energy in reciprocal space. Then relaxation of slowly increasing stresses will give rise to intermittent bursts of transport in real space and outstanding transport events beyond the range of applicability of the ‘conventional’ SOC. Also, we are concerned with the causes and origins of non-local transport in magnetized plasma, and show that this type of transport occurs naturally in self-consistent strong turbulence via a complexity coupling to the inverse cascade. We expect these coupling phenomena to occur in the parameter range of strong nonlinearity and time scale separation when the Rhines time in the system is small compared with the instability growth time.

By means of 3D hydrodynamical simulations, in a separate paper we have discussed the properties of non-axisymmetric density wave trains in the outermost regions of galaxy disks, based on the picture that self-excited global spiral modes in the bright optical stellar disk are accompanied by low-amplitude short trailing wave signals outside corotation; in the gas, such wave trains can penetrate through the outer Lindblad resonance and propagate outwards, forming prominent spiral patterns. In this paper we present the synthetic 21 cm velocity maps expected from simulated models of the outer gaseous disk, focusing on the case when the disk is dominated by a two-armed spiral pattern, but considering also other more complex situations. We discuss some aspects of the spiral pattern in the gaseous periphery of galaxy disks noted in our simulations that might be interesting to compare with specific observed cases.

Creation of plasmas by intense laser pulses and consequent laser–plasma interactions involve highly non-linear processes. In particular, a variation of the refractive index induced by the laser action turns into a self-phase modulation (SPM) of the laser field. This effect, already observed with nanosecond laser pulses, achieves striking evidence with ultra-short pulses whose intensity can produce index changes in a time as short as a single optical cycle. In this condition, spectral modifications of the laser pulse produced by SPM may strongly modify the laser–plasma interaction. At the same time, the spectral analysis of the transmitted and scattered laser radiation gives valuable information on a variety of processes occurring in the plasma. In this paper we simply consider a few results, which can be attributed to SPM, with the aim of comparing nanosecond and sub-picosecond laser interaction regimes at moderate laser intensities.

In experiments with neutral beam injection at the early stage of a Globus-M discharge, instabilities were observed that were excited by fast ions in the frequency range of 50–200 kHz, which were identified as toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes (TAE) (Petrov et al., Plasma Phys. Rep., vol. 37, 2011, pp. 1001–1005). In contradiction with the NSTX and MAST tokamaks, a regime of TAE generation was realized with strongly developed single modes. Magnetic measurements with fast Mirnov probes have shown that most of the modes have toroidal number $n=1$. The influence of the modes on the fast particle confinement was recorded by means of a tangentially directed neutral particle analyser (NPA) and neutron detector. Hydrogen and deuterium were used as target plasma and injected beam for study of the isotopic effect. At deuterium injection into the deuterium plasma, TAE led to the neutron rate dropping by 25 %, whereas NPA fluxes of high energy dropped by 75 %. At hydrogen injection, the drop in the measured NPA fluxes did not exceed 25 %.

A formalism for consideration of island formation is presented using a model of a cylindrical resistively unstable plasma. Both current and pressure driven island formation at resonant surfaces are considered. The proposed formalism of perturbed equilibria avoids problems typical for linear analysis of resistive magneto-hydrodynamic instabilities related to extraction of the so-called small solution near the resonant surfaces. The matching technique of this paper is not sensitive to configuration parameters near the resonant surfaces. The comparison of the perturbed equilibrium method with the frequently used quasilinear mode analysis based on a perturbed averaged current density profile shows that the latter is limited in its applicability and underestimates the stability. Presented here for a cylindrical case, the perturbed equilibrium technique can be used in toroidal perturbed equilibrium codes with minor modifications.