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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Benella, Simone, Quattrociocchi, Virgilio, Papini, Emanuele, Verdini, Andrea, Landi, Simone, Marcucci, Maria Federica, Consolini, Giuseppe
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05996
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author Benella, Simone
Quattrociocchi, Virgilio
Papini, Emanuele
Verdini, Andrea
Landi, Simone
Marcucci, Maria Federica
Consolini, Giuseppe
author_facet Benella, Simone
Quattrociocchi, Virgilio
Papini, Emanuele
Verdini, Andrea
Landi, Simone
Marcucci, Maria Federica
Consolini, Giuseppe
contents We examine how local streamline topology and energy cascade rate self-organize in plasma turbulence for both compressible and incompressible regimes. Using a fully-compressible Hall-magnetohydrodynamic simulation, we quantify the subgrid-scale energy transfer and analyze its relationship to streamline structures by means of grandient tensor geometric invariants of the velocity field. Our results highlight how streamline topology is crucial for diagnosing turbulence: for nearly-incompressible fluctuations the energy is primarily transferred to smaller scales through strain-dominated and stable-vortical structures, while is back-transferred towards larger scales through unstable-vortical structures. Compressible fluctuations, on the contrary, do not show a clear topological selection of the energy transfer since the overall direction of the local cascade rate is found to be determined by the sign of $-\nabla\cdot u$ (plasma volumetric compression or expansion).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_05996
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Self-organization of local streamline structures and energy transfer rate in compressible plasma turbulence
Benella, Simone
Quattrociocchi, Virgilio
Papini, Emanuele
Verdini, Andrea
Landi, Simone
Marcucci, Maria Federica
Consolini, Giuseppe
Space Physics
Plasma Physics
We examine how local streamline topology and energy cascade rate self-organize in plasma turbulence for both compressible and incompressible regimes. Using a fully-compressible Hall-magnetohydrodynamic simulation, we quantify the subgrid-scale energy transfer and analyze its relationship to streamline structures by means of grandient tensor geometric invariants of the velocity field. Our results highlight how streamline topology is crucial for diagnosing turbulence: for nearly-incompressible fluctuations the energy is primarily transferred to smaller scales through strain-dominated and stable-vortical structures, while is back-transferred towards larger scales through unstable-vortical structures. Compressible fluctuations, on the contrary, do not show a clear topological selection of the energy transfer since the overall direction of the local cascade rate is found to be determined by the sign of $-\nabla\cdot u$ (plasma volumetric compression or expansion).
title Self-organization of local streamline structures and energy transfer rate in compressible plasma turbulence
topic Space Physics
Plasma Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05996