Particle transport through localized interactions with sharp magnetic field bends in MHD turbulence

Abstract

When a particle crosses a region of space where the curvature radius of the magnetic field line shrinks below its gyroradius $r_{\rm g}$, it experiences a non-adiabatic (magnetic moment violating) change in pitch angle. The present paper carries that observation into magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence to examine the influence of intermittent, sharp bends of the magnetic field lines on particle transport. On the basis of dedicated measurements in a simulation of incompressible turbulence, it is argued that regions of sufficiently large curvature exist in sufficient numbers on all scales to promote scattering. The parallel mean free path predicted by the power-law statistics of the curvature strength scales in proportion to $r_{\rm g}^{0.3}\,\ell_{\rm c}^{0.7}$ ($\ell_{\rm c}$ coherence scale of the turbulence), which is of direct interest for cosmic-ray phenomenology. Particle tracking in that numerical simulation confirms that the magnetic moment diffuses through localized, violent interactions, in agreement with the above picture. Correspondingly, the overall transport process is non-Brownian up to length scales $\gtrsim\ell_{\rm c}$.