Phase space transport in the interaction between shocks and plasma turbulence

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2026764118
• Publication Date: 2021-05-18T20:05:27Z
• Authors: Domenico Trotta; Francesco Valentini; David Burgess; Sergio Servidio
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 01 natural sciences

Significance Shocks and turbulence are spectacular, ubiquitous phenomena. In this work, we investigate, by kinetic simulations, the interaction between a supercritical shock and fully developed plasma turbulence. We demonstrate how turbulence dramatically changes the phase space transport due to a complex interaction. Two main findings are presented: 1) a paradigm for modeling the shocks, including a natural interaction with surrounding turbulence, and 2) an analysis method, based on coarse-grained kinetic equations, able to characterize (and simplify) the transport processes. These results are relevant for a variety of systems, ranging from the Earth’s bow shock interacting with solar wind turbulence to supernovae explosions propagating through the interstellar turbulent medium.