Full Kinetic Theory Research Articles

Two-phase modelling for sediment water mixtures above the limit deposit velocity in horizontal pipelines

Abstract In dredging applications, deep sea mining and land reclamation projects typically large amounts of sediments are transported through pipes in the form of hyper concentrated (40% sediment or more) sediment-water mixtures or slurries. In this paper it is investigated how well a generic Euler-Euler CFD-model is capable to model velocity, concentration profiles and the pressure gradient of sediment above deposition limit velocity in a pipeline. This Euler-Euler solver treats both phases as a continuum with its own momentum and continuity equations. The full kinetic theory for granular flows is accounted for (no algebraic form is used) and is combined with a buoyant k-ε turbulence model for the fluid phase. The influence of the mesh size has been checked and grid convergence is achieved. All numerical schemes used are of second-order accuracy in space. The pressure gradient was calibrated by adjusting the specularity coefficient in one calibration case and kept constant afterwards. Simulations were carried out in a wide range of slurry flow parameters, in situ volume concentration (9–42%), pipe diameter (0.05–0.90 m), particle diameter (90–440 μm) and flow velocity of (3–7 m/s). The model shows satisfactory agreement to experimental data from existing literature.

Adiabatic hydrodynamization in rapidly-expanding quark–gluon plasma

We propose a new scenario characterizing the transition of the quark–gluon plasma (QGP) produced in heavy-ion collisions from a highly non-equilibrium state at early times toward a fluid described by hydrodynamics at late times. We develop an analogy to the evolution of a quantum mechanical system that is governed by the instantaneous ground states. In the simplest case, these slow modes are “pre-hydrodynamic” in the sense that they are initially distinct from, but evolve continuously into, hydrodynamic modes. For a class of collision integrals, the pre-hydrodynamic mode represents the angular distribution (in momentum space) of those gluons that carry most of the energy. We illustrate this scenario using a kinetic description of weakly-coupled Bjorken expanding plasma. Rapid longitudinal expansion drives a reduction in the degrees of freedom at early times. In the relaxation time approximation for the collision integral, we show quantitatively that the full kinetic theory evolution is dominated by the pre-hydrodynamic mode. We elaborate on the criterion for the dominance of pre-hydrodynamic slow modes and speculate that adiabatic hydrodynamization may describe the pre-equilibrium behavior of the QGP produced in heavy-ion collisions.

The Non-equilibrium Attractor: Beyond Hydrodynamics

The quark-gluon plasma created in heavy-ion collisions is not in local thermal equilibrium at early times. Despite this, dissipative hydrodynamics describes the evolution of the energy-momentum tensor quite well after only roughly 0.5 - 1 fm/c. This can be understood using the concept of a non-equilibrium dynamical attractor. The attractor is a uniquely identifiable solution to the dynamical equations to which all solutions are drawn as the system evolves. Once solutions collapse onto the non-equilibrium attractor they are ``pseudo-thermalized'' in the sense that they have lost information about the precise initial conditions used, but are not yet in exact local thermal equilibrium. Here I review recent work which demonstrates that there exists a non-equilibrium attractor in full kinetic theory models which goes beyond the usual low-order momentum moments considered in hydrodynamical treatments.

Dynamic hysteresis of a uniaxial superparamagnet: Semi-adiabatic approximation

The semi-adiabatic theory of magnetic response of a uniaxial single-domain ferromagnetic particle is presented. The approach is developed in the context of the kinetic theory and allows for any orientation of the external field. Within this approximation, the dynamic magnetic hysteresis loops in an ac field are calculated. It is demonstrated that they very closely resemble those obtained by the full kinetic theory. The behavior of the effective coercive force is analyzed in detail, and for it a simple formula is proposed. This relation accounts not only for the temperature behavior of the coercive force, as the previous ones do, but also yields the dependence on the frequency and amplitude of the applied field.

Comment on “Role of dispersive Alfvén waves in generating parallel electric fields along the Io-Jupiter fluxtube” by S. T. Jones and Y.-J. Su

Comment on “Role of dispersive Alfvén waves in generating parallel electric fields along the Io-Jupiter fluxtube” by S. T. Jones and Y.-J. Su

The strange physics of low frequency mirror mode turbulence in the high temperature plasma of the magnetosheath

Abstract. Mirror mode turbulence is the lowest frequency perpendicular magnetic excitation in magnetized plasma proposed already about half a century ago by Rudakov and Sagdeev (1958) and Chandrasekhar et al. (1958) from fluid theory. Its experimental verification required a relatively long time. It was early recognized that mirror modes for being excited require a transverse pressure (or temperature) anisotropy. In principle mirror modes are some version of slow mode waves. Fluid theory, however, does not give a correct physical picture of the mirror mode. The linear infinitesimally small amplitude physics is described correctly only by including the full kinetic theory and is modified by existing spatial gradients of the plasma parameters which attribute a small finite frequency to the mode. In addition, the mode is propagating only very slowly in plasma such that convective transport is the main cause of flow in it. As the lowest frequency mode it can be expected that mirror modes serve as one of the dominant energy inputs into plasma. This is however true only when the mode grows to large amplitude leaving the linear stage. At such low frequencies, on the other hand, quasilinear theory does not apply as a valid saturation mechanism. Probably the dominant processes are related to the generation of gradients in the plasma which serve as the cause of drift modes thus transferring energy to shorter wavelength propagating waves of higher nonzero frequency. This kind of theory has not yet been developed as it has not yet been understood why mirror modes in spite of their slow growth rate usually are of very large amplitudes indeed of the order of |B/B0|2~O(1). It is thus highly reasonable to assume that mirror modes are instrumental for the development of stationary turbulence in high temperature plasma. Moreover, since the magnetic field in mirror turbulence forms extended though slightly oblique magnetic bottles, low parallel energy particles can be trapped in mirror modes and redistribute energy (cf. for instance, Chisham et al. 1998). Such trapped electrons excite banded whistler wave emission known under the name of lion roars and indicating that the mirror modes contain a trapped particle component while leading to the splitting of particle distributions (see Baumjohann et al., 1999) into trapped and passing particles. The most amazing fact about mirror modes is, however, that they evolve in the practically fully collisionless regime of high temperature plasma where it is on thermodynamic reasons entirely impossible to expel any magnetic field from the plasma. The fact that magnetic fields are indeed locally extracted makes mirror modes similar to "superconducting" structures in matter as known only at extremely low temperatures. Of course, microscopic quantum effects do not play a role in mirror modes. However, it seems that all mirror structures have typical scales of the order of the ion inertial length which implies that mirrors evolve in a regime where the transverse ion and electron motions decouple. In this case the Hall kinetics comes into play. We estimate that in the marginally stationary nonlinear state of the evolution of mirror modes the modes become stretched along the magnetic field with k||=0 and that a small number the order of a few percent of the particle density is responsible only for the screening of the field from the interior of the mirror bubbles.

Generation of electron–positron pairs in runaway breakdown

The full kinetic theory of runaway breakdown for electrons at high energy range is developed. The theory takes into account both ionization and bremsstrahlung processes. The electron–positron pairs generation is studied. The possibility to observe e + e − annihilation line during intensive discharges in atmosphere is predicted.

Nonlinear Kinetic Fluid Equations

Fluid equations are derived that describe wave-particle resonances, which usually require kinetic theory. Unlike previous such efforts the closure is not linearized, and so retains many nonlinear wave-particle effects never before described by fluid equations. To demonstrate utility, we show that the new equations can retain trapping, time reversibility, and rectify a discrepancy between full kinetic theory and linear kinetic fluid closures.

Anisotropic Dispersion of a Charged Particle Swarm in a Turbulent Gas in an Electrostatic Field

This paper generalises an earlier result of Saffman (1960) to account for cross effects between turbulent and molecular diffusion for charged particle swarms in a gas in the presence of an electrostatic field. It is shown that turbulence enhances the anisotropic character of diffusion. The desirability of using a full kinetic theory analysis as against a limited hydrodynamic description of the swarm is discussed, and one possible tractable approach pointed out.

Kinetic theory of light-induced drift of gas particles

The full kinetic theory for light-induced drift (LID) is proposed. Fundamental features of the phenomenon which can be investigated without the solution of kinetic equations are analyzed. Grad's method generalized for the case of a gas in the presence of a radiation field is the basis for a more detailed theory. Together with the general analysis of transport equations there is a consideration of the influence of the velocity dependence of the collisional frequencies on LID parameters. For investigation of precision and limits of applicability of Grad's method we use the Lorentz model which permits us to obtain the exact solution under some conditions.

Electrostatic waves potential at the plasma and upper-hybrid resonances

The potential created by an infinitesimal alternating dipole in a Maxwellian magnetoplasma is computed numerically at the plasma and upper-hybrid resonance frequencies when the latter extends from one to three times the electron cyclotron frequency. A linear full kinetic theory is used for a homogeneous magnetoplasma for which the forced ion motion and the collisions are neglected. The integral which gives the potential is evaluated by using the least-damping- roots (LDR) approximation, i.e. by neglecting the higher-order roots of the dispersion equation for electrostatic waves. Some characteristic potential patterns of dipoles parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field are computed and comparisons with analytical results previously published are made. The numerical and analytical patterns are similar only at the plasma frequency when the dipole is parallel to the magnetic field.