Turbulent equipartitions in two dimensional drift convection

Abstract

Unlike the thermodynamic equipartition of energy in conservative systems, turbulent equipartitions (TEP) describe strongly non-equilibrium systems such as turbulent plasmas. In turbulent systems, energy is no longer a good invariant, but one can utilize the conservation of other quantities, such as adiabatic invariants, frozen-in magnetic flux, entropy, or combination thereof, in order to derive new, turbulent quasi-equilibria. These TEP equilibria assume various forms, but in general they sustain spatially inhomogeneous distributions of the usual thermodynamic quantities such as density or temperature. This mechanism explains the effects of particle and energy pinch in tokamaks. The analysis of the relaxed states caused by turbulent mixing is based on the existence of Lagrangian invariants (quantities constant along fluid-particle or other orbits). A turbulent equipartition corresponds to the spatially uniform distribution of relevant Lagrangian invariants. The existence of such turbulent equilibria is demonstrated in the simple model of two dimensional electrostatically turbulent plasma in an inhomogeneous magnetic field. The turbulence is prescribed, and the turbulent transport is assumed to be much stronger than the classical collisional transport. The simplicity of the model makes it possible to derive the equations describing the relaxation to the TEP state in several limits.