Intermittency and Dissipative Structures Arising from Relativistic Magnetized Turbulence

Abstract

Kinetic simulations of relativistic turbulence have significantly advanced our understanding of turbulent particle acceleration. Recent progress has highlighted the need for an updated acceleration theory that can account for acceleration within the plasma's coherent structures. Here, we investigate how turbulent intermittency models connect statistical fluctuations in turbulence to regions of high dissipation. This connection is established by employing a generalized She-Leveque model to describe the exponents $ζ_p$ for the structure functions $S^p \propto l^{ζ_p}$. The fitting of the scaling exponents provide us with a measure of the co-dimension of the dissipative structures, and we subsequently measure their filling fraction. We perform our analysis for a range of magnetizations $σ$ and magnetic field fluctuations ${δB_0}/{B_0}$. We find that increasing the values of $σ$ and ${δB_0}/{B_0}$ allows the cascade to break sheets into smaller regions of dissipation that resemble chains of plasmoids. However, as their dissipation increases, the dissipative regions become less volume filling. With this work we aim to inform future turbulent acceleration theories that incorporate particle energization from interactions with coherent structures within relativistic turbulence.