Determining the physical mechanisms that extract energy from turbulent fluctuations in weakly collisional magnetized plasmas is necessary for a more complete characterization of the behaviour of a variety of space and astrophysical plasmas. Such a determination is complicated by the complex nature of the turbulence as well as observational constraints, chiefly that in situ measurements of such plasmas are typically only available at a single point in space. Recent work has shown that correlations between electric fields and particle velocity distributions constructed from single-point measurements produce a velocity-dependent signature of the collisionless damping mechanism. We extend this work by constructing field–particle correlations using data sets drawn from single points in strongly driven, turbulent, electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations to demonstrate that this technique can identify the collisionless mechanisms operating in such systems. The velocity-space structure of the correlation between proton distributions and parallel electric fields agrees with expectations of resonant mechanisms transferring energy collisionlessly in turbulent systems. This work motivates the eventual application of field–particle correlations to spacecraft measurements in the solar wind, with the ultimate goal to determine the physical mechanisms that dissipate magnetized plasma turbulence.

In this article, self-focusing of an intense circularly polarized laser pulse in the presence of an external oblique magnetic field in hot magnetized plasma, using Maxwell’s equations and the relativistic fluid momentum equation, is studied. An envelope equation governing the spot size of the laser beam for both of left- and right-hand polarizations has been derived and the effects of the plasma temperature and oblique magnetic field on the electron density distribution of hot plasma with respect to variation of the normalized laser spot size has been investigated. Numerical results depict that in right-hand polarization, self-focusing of the laser pulse along the propagation direction in hot magnetized plasma becomes better and more compressed with increasing $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$. Inversely, in left-hand polarization, increase of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$ in an oblique magnetic field leads to enhancement of the spot size and reduction self-focusing. Besides, in the plasma density profile, self-focusing of the laser pulse improves in comparison with no oblique magnetic field. Also it is shown that plasma temperature has a key role in the laser spot size, normalized laser output power and the variation of plasma density.

The paper is devoted to the shapes of the solar wind ion flux fluctuation spectrum at the transition between the inertial and the kinetic range using in situ high-resolution measurements of the Russian mission Spektr-R. We analyse the variability of the transition region and select five typical types of spectral shapes: (i) spectra with two slopes and one break, (ii) spectra characterized by a nonlinear steepening in the kinetic range, (iii) spectra with flattening in the vicinity of the break, (iv) spectra with a bump in the vicinity of the break and (v) spectra without any steepening in the kinetic range. The most popular is the well-known type (i) observed in approximately half of the cases. The second most popular type of spectra is type (iii) occurring in approximately one third of the cases. The other three types are observed less often: type (ii) – in approximately 6 %; type (iv) in 3 % and type (v) in 6 % of cases. An analysis of typical plasma conditions for different types of spectra revealed that the last two type of spectra (iv) and (v) are generally observed in a very slow solar wind with a low proton density, (i) and (iii) are observed in the solar wind with rather typical conditions and (ii) is usually observed in high-speed streams. The effect of nonlinear steepening of the spectra in the kinetic range increases with the solar wind speed. We present also the analysis of statistical properties of the observed events and compare them with the predictions of several statistical turbulence models. We show that intermittency is always observed in the solar wind flow despite the presence of one or another shape of spectra. The log-Poisson model with a dominant contribution of filament-like structures shows the best parameterization of the experimentally observed scaling.

The energy budget of a collisionless plasma subject to electrostatic fluctuations is considered, and the excess of thermal energy over the minimum accessible to it under various constraints that limit the possible forms of plasma motion is calculated. This excess measures how much thermal energy is ‘available’ for conversion into plasma instabilities, and therefore constitutes a nonlinear measure of plasma stability. A distribution function with zero available energy defines a ‘ground state’ in the sense that its energy cannot decrease by any linear or nonlinear plasma motion. In a Vlasov plasma with small density and temperature fluctuations, the available energy is proportional to the mean square of these quantities, and exceeds the corresponding energy in ideal or resistive magnetohydrodynamics. If the first or second adiabatic invariant is conserved, ground states generally have inhomogeneous density and temperature. Magnetically confined plasmas are usually not in any ground state, but certain types of stellarator plasmas are so with respect to fluctuations that conserve both these adiabatic invariants, making the plasma linearly and nonlinearly stable to such fluctuations. Similar stability properties can also be enjoyed by plasmas confined by a dipole magnetic field.

Reduced fluid models for collisionless plasmas including electron inertia and finite Larmor radius corrections are derived for scales ranging from the ion to the electron gyroradii. Based either on pressure balance or on the incompressibility of the electron fluid, they respectively capture kinetic Alfvén waves (KAWs) or whistler waves (WWs), and can provide suitable tools for reconnection and turbulence studies. Both isothermal regimes and Landau fluid closures permitting anisotropic pressure fluctuations are considered. For small values of the electron beta parameter $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{e}$ , a perturbative computation of the gyroviscous force valid at scales comparable to the electron inertial length is performed at order $O(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{e})$ , which requires second-order contributions in a scale expansion. Comparisons with kinetic theory are performed in the linear regime. The spectrum of transverse magnetic fluctuations for strong and weak turbulence energy cascades is also phenomenologically predicted for both types of waves. In the case of moderate ion to electron temperature ratio, a new regime of KAW turbulence at scales smaller than the electron inertial length is obtained, where the magnetic energy spectrum decays like $k_{\bot }^{-13/3}$ , thus faster than the $k_{\bot }^{-11/3}$ spectrum of WW turbulence.

A brief critique is presented of some different classes of magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium solutions based on their continuity properties and whether the magnetic field is integrable or not. A generalized energy functional is introduced that is comprised of alternating ideal regions, with nested flux surfaces with an irrational rotational transform, and Taylor-relaxed regions, possibly with magnetic islands and chaos. The equilibrium states have globally continuous magnetic fields, and may be constructed for arbitrary three-dimensional plasma boundaries and appropriately prescribed pressure and rotational-transform profiles.

Optimised stellarators and other magnetic-confinement devices having the property that the average magnetic curvature is favourable for all particle orbits are called maximum-$J$ devices. They have recently been shown to be immune to trapped-particle instabilities driven by the density gradient. Gyrokinetic simulations reveal, however, that another instability can arise, which is also associated with particle trapping but causes less transport than typical trapped-electron modes. The nature of this instability is clarified here. It is shown to be similar to the ‘ubiquitous mode’ in tokamaks and is driven by ion free energy, but requires trapped electrons to exist.

We present a novel framework for finite element particle-in-cell methods based on the discretization of the underlying Hamiltonian structure of the Vlasov–Maxwell system. We derive a semi-discrete Poisson bracket, which retains the defining properties of a bracket, anti-symmetry and the Jacobi identity, as well as conservation of its Casimir invariants, implying that the semi-discrete system is still a Hamiltonian system. In order to obtain a fully discrete Poisson integrator, the semi-discrete bracket is used in conjunction with Hamiltonian splitting methods for integration in time. Techniques from finite element exterior calculus ensure conservation of the divergence of the magnetic field and Gauss’ law as well as stability of the field solver. The resulting methods are gauge invariant, feature exact charge conservation and show excellent long-time energy and momentum behaviour. Due to the generality of our framework, these conservation properties are guaranteed independently of a particular choice of the finite element basis, as long as the corresponding finite element spaces satisfy certain compatibility conditions.

The collisionless axisymmetric zonal flow residual calculation for a tokamak plasma is generalized to include electromagnetic perturbations. We formulate and solve the complete initial value zonal flow problem by retaining the fully self-consistent axisymmetric spatial perturbations in the electric and magnetic fields. Simple expressions for the electrostatic, shear and compressional magnetic residual responses are derived that provide a fully electromagnetic test of the zonal flow residual in gyrokinetic codes. Unlike the electrostatic potential, the parallel vector potential and the parallel magnetic field perturbations need not relax to flux functions for all possible initial conditions.

Supercritical plasma compositions in parameter space are considered for a general fluid model consisting of an arbitrary number of species. This is done by applying a Taylor series expansion of the Sagdeev potential about the acoustic speed and the equilibrium electrostatic potential. A novel finding in this study is the description of small-amplitude supersolitons. Our analysis allows us to determine the plasma compositional criteria for such structures, as well as lower and upper bounds of their velocities and amplitudes. We therefore establish an interesting link between supercritical plasma compositions and the existence of supersolitons. The results are illustrated via a case study where plasmas consisting of cold ions and two Boltzmann electron species are considered.

Upgraded heating and current drive (H/CD) systems have been equipped on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). With the upgraded H/CD systems, the operation space of EAST is extended, and the ability to achieve higher performance is improved. In this paper, a 0.5 dimension transport code named Minute Embedded Tokamak Integrated Simulator (METIS) is applied to predict the EAST operation space and to assess the current drive capability of the 4.6 GHz lower hybrid current drive system. Predictive simulation of several EAST scenarios, including steady-state high confinement mode (H-mode), advanced regime, high normalized beta and high electron temperature, are also performed with the available H/CD systems. The simulation results provide a guidance for forthcoming advanced EAST experiments.

A one-dimensional electrostatic filtered Vlasov–Poisson simulation study is discussed. The transition from persisting to arrested Landau damping that is produced by increasing the strength of a sinusoidal perturbation on a background Vlasov–Poisson equilibrium is explored. Emphasis is placed on observed features of the electron phase-space distribution when the perturbation strength is near the transition value. A single ubiquitous waveform is found perturbing the space-averaged phase-space distribution at almost any time in all of the simulations; the sole exception is the saturation stage that can occur at the end of the arrested damping scenario. This waveform contains relatively strong, very narrow structures in velocity bracketing $\pm v_{\text{res}}$ – the velocities at which electrons must move to traverse the dominant field mode wavelength in one of its oscillation periods – and propagating with $\pm v_{\text{res}}$ respectively. Local streams of electrons are found in these structures crossing the resonant velocities from low speed to high speed during Landau damping and from high speed to low speed during Landau growth. At the arrest time, when the field strength is briefly constant, these streams vanish. It is conjectured that the expected transfer of energy between electrons and field during Landau growth or damping has been visualized for the first time. No evidence is found in the phase-space distribution to support recent well-established discoveries of a second-order phase transition in the electric field evolution. While trapping is known to play a role for larger perturbation strengths, it is shown that trapping plays no role at any time in any of the simulations near the transition perturbation strength.

Considerable interest has been paid to laser-induced breakdown in liquid because of its wide application to medical issues of the eye and environmental monitoring. Therefore, the present work aims to study the phenomena of LIB in bulk distilled water generated in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) experiment. The effect of experimental parameters such as inter-pulse delay between the two lasers, laser pulse energy and detection time window have been studied to examine the temporal growth of the laser-induced plasma in bulk water. Electron density and plasma temperature have been determined. The Stark broadening profile has been utilized for the electron density determination where the hydrogen lines $H_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}$ and $H_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}}$ have been used. A deviation between electron density values from the broadening of both lines has been observed and discussed. The electron density values are varied between $10\text{E}+18$ and $10\text{E}+17~\text{cm}^{-3}$ corresponding to the timing experimental parameters. The plasma temperature is varied over a range 16 000 $\text{K}$ to 10 700 $\text{K}$ due to the plasma’s temporal behaviour with experimental parameters.

We present a fast and spectrally accurate numerical scheme for the evaluation of the gyroaveraged electrostatic potential in non-periodic gyrokinetic-Poisson simulations. Our method relies on a reformulation of the gyrokinetic-Poisson system in which the gyroaverage in Poisson’s equation is computed for the compactly supported charge density instead of the non-periodic, non-compactly supported potential itself. We calculate this gyroaverage with a combination of two Fourier transforms and a Hankel transform, which has the near optimal run-time complexity $O(N_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}}(P+\hat{P})\log (P+\hat{P}))$, where $P$ is the number of spatial grid points, $\hat{P}$ the number of grid points in Fourier space and $N_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}}$ the number of grid points in velocity space. We present numerical examples illustrating the performance of our code and demonstrating geometric convergence of the error.

Plasma turbulence occurs ubiquitously in space and astrophysical plasmas, mediating the nonlinear transfer of energy from large-scale electromagnetic fields and plasma flows to small scales at which the energy may be ultimately converted to plasma heat. But plasma turbulence also generically leads to a tangling of the magnetic field that threads through the plasma. The resulting wander of the magnetic field lines may significantly impact a number of important physical processes, including the propagation of cosmic rays and energetic particles, confinement in magnetic fusion devices and the fundamental processes of turbulence, magnetic reconnection and particle acceleration. The various potential impacts of magnetic field line wander are reviewed in detail, and a number of important theoretical considerations are identified that may influence the development and saturation of magnetic field line wander in astrophysical plasma turbulence. The results of nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of kinetic Alfvén wave turbulence of sub-ion length scales are evaluated to understand the development and saturation of the turbulent magnetic energy spectrum and of the magnetic field line wander. It is found that turbulent space and astrophysical plasmas are generally expected to contain a stochastic magnetic field due to the tangling of the field by strong plasma turbulence. Future work will explore how the saturated magnetic field line wander varies as a function of the amplitude of the plasma turbulence and the ratio of the thermal to magnetic pressure, known as the plasma beta.