Inertial range spectrum of field-aligned whistler turbulence

Navin Kumar Dwivedi, Shobhana Singh*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

An analytical model to study the whistler turbulence spectrum and inertial range spectral scalings related with the electric and magnetic field spectra in a weakly non-collisional magnetized plasma is developed. In the present model, the dispersion relation of whistler wave propagating along the background magnetic field is exploited to derive the inertial range scaling laws corresponding to the electric field and magnetic field fluctuations. The model is based on the concept of Iroshnikov-Kraichnan inertial range magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. The present phenomenological turbulence scaling model suggests the energy spectra associated with the whistler wave electric field fluctuations and magnetic field fluctuations pursue -1 and -3 power-laws, respectively. Moreover, the results obtained by the present analytical model reasonably able to explain and compare the observational energy spectra in the wave number domain. The observational and analytical results support the whistler dominated turbulence with the similar spectral index -1 of the electric field spectra, whereas, the magnetic field spectral indices in the wave number domain are found and -3 for the observational and analytical approach, respectively.
Original languageEnglish
Article number035001
JournalPhysica Scripta
Volume92
Number of pages6
ISSN0031-8949
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2017

Keywords

  • Energy spectrum
  • Magnetic reconnection
  • Power-laws
  • Turbulence
  • Whistler

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