Global scale-invariant dissipation in collisionless plasma turbulence

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Aug 14;103(7):075006. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.075006. Epub 2009 Aug 14.

Abstract

A higher-order multiscale analysis of the dissipation range of collisionless plasma turbulence is presented using in situ high-frequency magnetic field measurements from the Cluster spacecraft in a stationary interval of fast ambient solar wind. The observations, spanning five decades in temporal scales, show a crossover from multifractal intermittent turbulence in the inertial range to non-Gaussian monoscaling in the dissipation range. This presents a strong observational constraint on theories of dissipation mechanisms in turbulent collisionless plasmas.