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Energetic particle transport in the presence of magnetic turbulence: Influence of spectral extension and intermittency

Abstract:

The transport of energetic particles in the presence of magnetic turbulence is an important but unsolved problem of space physics and astrophysics. Here, we aim at advancing the understanding of energetic particle transport by means of a new numerical model of synthetic magnetic turbulence. The model builds up a turbulent magnetic field as a superposition of space-localized fluctuations at different spatial scales. The resulting spectrum is isotropic with an adjustable spectral index. The model allows us to reproduce a spectrum broader than four decades, and to regulate the level of intermittency through a technique based on the p-model. Adjusting the simulation parameters close to solar wind conditions at 1 au, we inject ~1 MeV protons in the turbulence realization and compute the parallel and perpendicular diffusion coefficients as a function of spectral extension, turbulence level, and intermittency. While a number of previous results are recovered in the appropriate limits, including anomalous transport regimes for low turbulence levels, we find that long spectral extensions tend to reduce the diffusion coefficients. Furthermore, we find for the first time that intermittency has an influence on parallel transport but not on perpendicular transport, with the parallel diffusion coefficient increasing with the level of intermittency. We also obtain the distribution of particle inversion times for parallel velocity, a power law for more than one decade, and compare it with the pitch angle scattering times observed in the solar wind. This parametric study can be useful to interpret particle propagation properties in astrophysical systems.