The Propagation and Dissipation of Shear Alfven Waves: the Kinetic Simulations of Plasmas Driven by Alfven Waves, Using a 2.5d Fully Electromagnetic Particle-in-cell Code

This study of plasmas driven by Alfven waves (AWs) is based on kinetic simulations using a 2.5D fully electromagnetic Particle-In-Cell code. The code was developed and parallelized to run on parallel computers. (1). We simulated the propagation of shear AWs with long wavelength across the ambient magnetic field. Such waves propagate along the magnetic field and have transverse electric and magnetic field components. We studied the generation of electrostatic plasma waves powered by the AWs, as well as acceleration of electrons and ions facilitated by electrostatic waves. (2). We studied radiation of AWs from localized sources. The radiated waves are inertial AWs with a conical pattern and half-cone angle from the magnetic field direction given by AW resonance cone angle. Such conical structures have a longitudinal electric field parallel to the ambient magnetic field along with the transverse electric and magnetic fields components, and parallel currents. (3) We considered the scattering of a plane shear Alfven wave propagating along the ambient magnetic field by small cavities. It was found that scattered waves are the inertial AWs which heat the ions and produce energetic electron tail along the ambient magnetic field. The features of radiated and scattered waves are compared with satellite observations.