A non-local fluid closure for modeling cyclotron resonance in collisionless magnetized plasmas

Abstract

A fluid description for collisionless magnetized plasmas that takes into account the effect of cyclotron resonance has been developed. Following the same approach as the Landau fluid closure, the heat flux components associated with transverse electromagnetic fluctuations are approximated by a linear combination of lower-order moments in wavenumber space. The closure successfully reproduces the linear cyclotron resonance for electromagnetic waves propagating parallel to the ambient magnetic field. In the presence of finite temperature anisotropy, the model gives approximately correct prediction for an instability destabilized via the cyclotron resonance. A nonlinear simulation demonstrates the wave growth consistent with the linear theory followed by the reduction of initial anisotropy, and finally, the saturation of the instability. The isotropization may be understood in terms of quasilinear theory, which is developed within the framework of the fluid model but very similar to its fully kinetic counterpart. The result indicates that both linear and nonlinear collisionless plasma responses are approximately incorporated in the fluid model.