CGL description revisited

Abstract

Solar wind observational studies have emphasized that the solar wind plasma data is bounded by the mirror and firehose instabilities, and it is often believed that these instabilities are of a purely kinetic nature. The simplest fluid model that generalizes magnetohydrodynamics with anisotropic temperatures is the Chew-Goldberger-Low model (CGL). Here we briefly revisit the CGL description and discuss its (otherwise well-documented) linear firehose and mirror instability thresholds; namely that the firehose instability threshold is identical to the one found from linear kinetic theory and that the mirror threshold contains a factor of 6 error. We consider a simple higher-order fluid model with time dependent heat flux equations and show that the mirror instability threshold is correctly reproduced. We also present fully nonlinear three-dimensional simulations of freely decaying turbulence for the Hall-CGL model with isothermal electrons. The spatial resolution of these simulations is 5123 and the formatio...