Propagation and Dissipation of Shear Alfven Waves

This study of plasmas driven by Alfven waves (AWs) is based on kinetic simulations using a 2.5D fully electromagnetic Particle-In-Cell code. The code was developed and parallelized torun on parallel computers. (1). We simulated the propagation ofshear AWs with long wavelength across the ambient magnetic field. Such waves propagate along the magnetic field and have transverse electric and magnetic field components. We studied the generation of electrostatic plasma waves powered by the AWs, as well as acceleration of electrons and ions facilitated by electrostatic waves. (2) We studied radiation of AWs from localized sources. Ther adiated waves are inertial AWs with a conical pattern and half-cone angle from the magnetic field direction given by AW resonance cone angle. Such conical structures have a longitudinal electric field parallel to the ambient magnetic field along with the transverse electric and magnetic fields components, and parallel currents. (3) We considered the scattering of a planeshear Alfven wave propagating along the ambient magnetic field bysmall cavities. It was found that scattered waves are the inertial AWs which heat the ions and produce energetic electron tail along the ambient magnetic field. The features of radiated and scattered waves are compared with satellite observations.