Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 12:45 pm - LB 329
    Katariina Nykyri, Imperial College      
   
The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at the low-latitude boundary layer and turbulence in the high-altitude cusp

Richard Feynman once said that turbulence is the most important unsolved problem of classical physics. In ordinary fluid one can detect turbulence in various places: when one pours cream into a coffee, in uprising smoke, or in a fast flowing river. Turbulence in plasma is more complicated due to the presence of a magnetic field. Plasmas can also sustain several different wave modes that at the sufficiently small scales can interact with the individual particles: energizing them, causing scattering, producing anomalous resistivity and transport. In first part of the talk I will show how Kelvin-Helmholtz instability can generate plasma transport at the low-latitude boundary layer by using MHD and Hall-MHD simulations. In second part of the talk I will show evidence of mutual existence of turbulence and discrete wave modes at the high-altitude cusp. High-altitude cusps are extremely turbulent regions--even during quiet geomagnetic conditions. For the first time we have been able to study this region with multi-point 'in situ' measurements by using 4 Cluster spacecraft. The four measurement points enable us to find gradients in a plasma, and calculate length scales of the magnetic field fluctuations.  I will discuss the structure of the double-sloped power law spectra with 'inertial' and 'dissipation' range and the physical mechanism generating the spectral breakpoint--usually observed at the local ion cyclotron frequency. I will also show evidence of the wave particle interactions occurring in high-altitude cusp.  Finally, I will conclude with ideas for future research, and why it is so important to understand the coupling between MHD and kinetic scales.


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