Nonlinear firehose relaxation and constant-B field fluctuations

Abstract

The nonlinear evolution of Alfv\'enic fluctuations in the firehose unstable regime is investigated numerically and theoretically for an anisotropic plasma described by the one-fluid double adiabatic equations. We revisit the traditional theory of the instability and examine the nonlinear saturation mechanism, showing that it corresponds to evolution towards states that minimize an appropriate energy functional. We demonstrate that such states correspond to broadband magnetic and velocity field fluctuations with an overall constant magnitude of the magnetic field. These nonlinear states provide a basin of attraction for the long-term nonlinear evolution of the instability, a self-organization process that may play a role in maintaining the constant-$B$ Alfv\'enic states seen in the solar wind in the high-$\beta$ regime.