Phase space transport in the interaction between shocks and plasma turbulence

The interaction of collisionless shocks with fully developed plasma turbulence is numerically investigated. Hybrid kinetic simulations, where a turbulent jet is slammed against an oblique shock, are employed to address the role of upstream turbulence on plasma transport. A technique, using coarse graining of the Vlasov equation, is proposed, showing that the particle transport strongly depends on upstream turbulence properties, such as strength and coherency. These results might be relevant for the understanding of acceleration and heating processes in space plasmas.

Constitutive relations for polar continua based on statistical mechanics and spatial averaging

The purpose of the current work is the formulation of macroscopic constitutive relations, and in particular continuum flux densities, for polar continua from the underlying mass point dynamics. To this end, generic microscopic continuum field and balance relations are derived from phase space transport relations for expectation values of point fields related to additive mass point quantities. Given these, microscopic energy, linear momentum and angular momentum, balance relations are obtained in the context of the split of system forces into non-conservative and conservative parts. In addition, divergence–flux relations are formulated for the conservative part of microscopic supply-rate densities. For the case of angular momentum, two such relations are obtained. One of these is force-based, and the other is torque-based. With the help of physical and material theoretic restrictions (e.g. material frame-indifference), reduced forms of the conservative flux densities are obtained. In the last part of the work, formulation of macroscopic constitutive relations from their microscopic counterparts is investigated in the context of different spatial averaging approaches. In particular, these include (weighted) volume-averaging based on a localization function, surface averaging of normal flux densities based on Cauchy flux theory and volume averaging with respect to centre of mass.

N-body chaos, phase-space transport and relaxation in numerical simulations

Using direct N-body simulations of self-gravitating systems we study the dependence of dynamical chaos on the system size N. We find that the N-body chaos quantified in terms of the largest Lyapunov exponent Λmax decreases with N. The values of its inverse (the so-called Lyapunov time tλ) are found to be smaller than the two-body collisional relaxation time but larger than the typical violent relaxation time, thus suggesting the existence of another collective time scale connected to many-body chaos.

Phase Space Structure and Transport in a Caldera Potential Energy Surface

We study phase space transport in a 2D caldera potential energy surface (PES) using techniques from nonlinear dynamics. The caldera PES is characterized by a flat region or shallow minimum at its center surrounded by potential walls and multiple symmetry related index one saddle points that allow entrance and exit from this intermediate region. We have discovered four qualitatively distinct cases of the structure of the phase space that govern phase space transport. These cases are categorized according to the total energy and the stability of the periodic orbits associated with the family of the central minimum, the bifurcations of the same family, and the energetic accessibility of the index one saddles. In each case, we have computed the invariant manifolds of the unstable periodic orbits of the central region of the potential, and the invariant manifolds of the unstable periodic orbits of the families of periodic orbits associated with the index one saddles. The periodic orbits of the central region are, for the first case, the unstable periodic orbits with period 10 that are outside the stable region of the stable periodic orbits of the family of the central minimum. In addition, the periodic orbits of the central region are, for the second and third cases, the unstable periodic orbits of the family of the central minimum and for the fourth case the unstable periodic orbits with period 2 of a period-doubling bifurcation of the family of the central minimum. We have found that there are three distinct mechanisms determined by the invariant manifold structure of the unstable periodic orbits that govern the phase space transport. The first mechanism explains the nature of the entrance of the trajectories from the region of the low energy saddles into the caldera and how they may become trapped in the central region of the potential. The second mechanism describes the trapping of the trajectories that begin from the central region of the caldera, their transport to the regions of the saddles, and the nature of their exit from the caldera. The third mechanism describes the phase space geometry responsible for the dynamical matching of trajectories originally proposed by Carpenter and described in [Collins et al., 2014] for the two-dimensional caldera PES that we consider.

Analytic slowing-down distributions as modified by turbulent transport

The effect of electrostatic microturbulence on fast particles rapidly decreases at high energy, but can be significant at moderate energy. Previous studies found that, in addition to changes in the energetic particle density, this results in non-trivial changes to the equilibrium velocity distribution. These effects have implications for plasma heating and the stability of Alfvén eigenmodes, but make multiscale simulations much more difficult without further approximations. Here, several related analytic model distribution functions are derived from first principles. A single dimensionless parameter characterizes the relative strength of turbulence relative to collisions, and this parameter appears as an exponent in the model distribution functions. Even the most simple of these models reproduces key features of the numerical phase-space transport solution and provides a useful a priori heuristic for determining how strong the effect of turbulence is on the redistribution of energetic particles in toroidal plasmas.

Study on the Safety Degree of Ship Capsizing in Stochastic Waves

To quantify ship capsizing, from the energy perspective, the safety degree of a ship in waves is estimated based on stochastic Melnikov function and phase space transport theory. Considering the influence of nonlinear damping moment, nonlinear restoring moment, as well as the random waves, a nonlinear single degree of freedom differential equation for ship rolling is established. Transform the random wave moment from time domain to frequency domain by fast Fourier transformation, the random Melnikov function and rate of phase flux are extended to include the effects of navigation speed and heading angle and the safety degree of ship capsizing is quantified according to its statistical characteristics. Through an example, the accuracy of Melnikov function and phase space transport theory are verified and the effects of ship speed and heading angle on phase space transport rate are also quantified. This method is demonstrated properly to quantify the safety degree of ship capsizing and some valuable reference can be provided for the further research on ship stability criteria.