Intermittency and Ion Temperature–Anisotropy Instabilities: Simulation and Magnetosheath Observation

Abstract

Abstract Weakly collisional space plasmas are rarely in local thermal equilibrium and often exhibit non-Maxwellian electron and ion velocity distributions that lead to the growth of microinstabilities—that is, enhanced electric and magnetic fields at relatively short wavelengths. These instabilities play an active role in the evolution of space plasmas, as does ubiquitous broadband turbulence induced by turbulent structures. This study compares certain properties of a 2.5-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation for the forward cascade of Alfvénic turbulence in a collisionless plasma against the same properties of turbulence observed by the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission spacecraft in the terrestrial magnetosheath. The PIC simulation is of decaying turbulence that develops both coherent structures and anisotropic ion velocity distributions with the potential to drive kinetic scale instabilities. The uniform background magnetic field points perpendicular to the plane of the simulation. Growth rates are computed from linear theory using the ion temperature anisotropies and ion beta values for both the simulation and the observations. Both the simulation and the observations show that strong anisotropies and growth rates occur highly intermittently in the plasma, and the simulation further shows that such anisotropies preferentially occur near current sheets. This suggests that, though microinstabilities may affect the plasma globally, they act locally and develop in response to extreme temperature anisotropies generated by turbulent structures. Further studies will be necessary to understand why there is an apparent correlation between linear instability theory and strongly intermittent turbulence.