{
  "id": "2108.13940",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2021-08-31T15:59:44.000Z",
  "updated": "2021-08-31T15:59:44.000Z",
  "title": "Kinetic Simulations of Imbalanced Turbulence in a Relativistic Plasma",
  "authors": [
    "Amelia Hankla",
    "Vladimir Zhdankin",
    "Gregory Werner",
    "Dmitri Uzdensky",
    "Mitchell Begelman"
  ],
  "comment": "Submitted to MNRAS",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.HE",
    "physics.plasm-ph",
    "physics.space-ph"
  ],
  "abstract": "Turbulent high-energy astrophysical systems often feature asymmetric energy injection or driving: for instance, nonlinear interactions between Alfv\\'en waves propagating from an accretion disk into its corona. Such systems -- relativistic analogs of the solar wind -- are \"imbalanced\": the energy fluxes parallel and anti-parallel to the large-scale magnetic field are unequal and the plasma therefore possesses net cross-helicity. In the past, numerical studies of imbalanced turbulence have focused on the magnetohydrodynamic regime. In the present study, we investigate externally-driven imbalanced turbulence in a collisionless, ultrarelativistically hot, magnetized pair plasma using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We find that a turbulent cascade forms for every value of imbalance covered by the simulations and that injected Poynting flux efficiently converts into net momentum of the plasma, a relativistic effect with implications for the launching of a disk wind. Surprisingly, particle acceleration remains efficient even for very imbalanced turbulence. These results characterize properties of imbalanced turbulence in a collisionless plasma and have ramifications for black hole accretion disk coronae, winds, and jets.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2021-08-31T15:59:44.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "imbalanced turbulence",
      "kinetic simulations",
      "relativistic plasma",
      "poynting flux efficiently converts",
      "black hole accretion disk coronae"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 0,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}