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Updated: Jul 6, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Nonlinear growth of firehose and mirror fluctuations in astrophysical plasmas
A A Schekochihin1, S C Cowley, R M Kulsrud
1Plasma Physics, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom. a.schekochihin@imperial.ac.uk
Abstract:
In turbulent high-beta astrophysical plasmas (exemplified by the galaxy cluster plasmas), pressure-anisotropy-driven firehose and mirror fluctuations grow nonlinearly to large amplitudes, deltaB/B approximately 1, on a time scale comparable to the turnover time of the turbulent motions. The principle of their nonlinear evolution is to generate secularly growing small-scale magnetic fluctuations that on average cancel the temporal change in the large-scale magnetic field responsible for the pressure anisotropies. The presence of small-scale magnetic fluctuations may dramatically affect the transport properties and, thereby, the large-scale dynamics of the high-beta astrophysical plasmas.
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