Self-organization and anomalous transport phenomena in solar coronal plasmas

• Applicant: Dr. Nina V. Elkina, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2007 to 2009
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 34078427

The project aims at the investigation of the self-organization phenomena determining the macroscopic transport properties of isothermal collisionless hot space plasmas induced due to phase space structuring at the nonlinear stage of current-driven instabilities. To simulate this problem appropriately we plan to extend our newly developed unsplit Eulerian electrostatic 1D1V (one spatial, one velocity space dimension) Vlasov code to higher dimensions in order to include electromagnetic effects. This will enable us to study also electromagnetic and obliquely propagating wave modes as well as instabilities due to pressure gradients accross current sheets. The ultimate goal of this project is the derivation of the anomalous resistivity in solar coronal plasmas and than by theoretical calculation of the microscopic momentum exchange rates, based on a kinetic description of nonlinear structuring due to microscopic plasma turbulence, in order to derive macroscopic transport coefficients in dependence on macroscopic plasma parameters are supposed to be incorporated in fluid models of, e.g. reconnection in the solar corona and of solar particle acceleration to high energies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants