Energy dissipation by whistler turbulence: Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations
Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of whistler turbulence are carried out on a collisionless, homogeneous, magnetized plasma model. The simulations use an initial ensemble of relatively long wavelength whistler modes and follow the temporal evolution of the fluctuations as they cascade into a broadband, anisotropic, turbulent spectrum at shorter wavelengths. For relatively small levels of the initial fluctuation energy ϵ{sub e}, linear collisionless damping provides most of the dissipation of the turbulence. But as ϵ{sub e} and the total dissipation increase, linear damping becomes less important and, especially at β{sub e} ≪ 1, nonlinear processes become stronger. The PDFs and kurtoses of the magnetic field increments in the simulations suggest that intermittency in whistler turbulence generally increases with increasing ϵ{sub e} and β{sub e}. Correlation coefficient calculations imply that the current structure dissipation also increases with increasing ϵ{sub e} and β{sub e}, and that the nonlinear dissipation processes in these simulations are primarily associated with regions of localized current structures.