Colliding Alfvénic wave packets in MHD, Hall and kinetic simulations

Abstract

The analysis of the Parker-Moffatt problem, recently revisited in Pezzi et al. (2016), is here extended by including the Hall magnetohydrodynamics and two hybrid kinetic Vlasov-Maxwell numerical models. The presence of dispersive and kinetic features is studied in detail and a comparison between the two kinetic codes is also reported. Focus on the presence of non-Maxwellian signatures shows that - during the collision - regions characterized by strong temperature anisotropy are recovered and the proton distribution function displays a beam along the direction of the magnetic field, similar to some recent observations of the solar wind.

Accepted for publication in J. Plasma Phys