Plasma Turbulence

Energy dissipation and particle transport in plasma turbulence across heliophysics regimes.

Self-generated turbulence in reconnection layers

3D reconnection simulations show self-generated turbulence that seeds particle transport and acceleration.

active

We probe how turbulence generated by reconnection or large-scale drivers redistributes energy and accelerates particles by combining VPIC, hybrid, and reduced turbulence models with transport diagnostics.

What’s happening

  • Exascale VPIC runs — Launching trillion-particle GPU campaigns to study how reconnection-generated turbulence impacts particle acceleration and transport.
  • Reconnection-driven spectra — Quantifying anisotropy, compressibility, and cascade rates in turbulence spawned by 3D reconnection layers.
  • Turbulent transport — Using tracer particles and test particles to measure diffusion coefficients and acceleration rates in reconnection-driven turbulence.
  • 3D reconnection and electron power laws
    X. Li et al. — ApJ (2019) — read
  • Fast Magnetic Reconnection with Turbulence in the High Lundquist Limit
    L. Yang et al. — ApJL (2020) — read
  • Heating of Heavy Ions in Low-beta Compressible Turbulence
    X. Fu, F. Guo, H. Li, & X. Li — ApJ (2020) — read

This line of work feeds turbulence parameters back into solar flares and SEP projects; message me if you’d like to compare diffusion coefficients or integrate these spectra into your models.