Production of a Chiral Magnetic Anomaly with Emerging Turbulence and Mean-Field Dynamo Action

In relativistic magnetized plasmas, asymmetry in the number densities of left-and right-handed fermions, i.e., a nonzero chiral chemical potential mu(5), leads to an electric current along the magnetic field. This causes a chiral dynamo instability for a uniform mu(5), but our simulations reveal a dynamo even for fluctuating mu(5) with zero mean. It produces magnetically dominated turbulence and generates mean magnetic fields via the magnetic alpha effect. Eventually, a universal scale-invariant k(-1) spectrum of mu(5) and a k(-3) magnetic spectrum are formed independently of the initial condition.

Dynamo instabilities in plasmas with inhomogeneous chiral chemical potential

We study the dynamics of magnetic fields in chiral magnetohydrodynamics, which takes into account the effects of an additional electric current related to the chiral magnetic effect in high-energy plasmas. We perform direct numerical simulations, considering weak seed magnetic fields and inhomogeneities of the chiral chemical potential mu(5) with a zero mean. We demonstrate that a small-scale chiral dynamo can occur in such plasmas if fluctuations of mu(5) are correlated on length scales that are much larger than the scale on which the dynamo growth rate reaches its maximum. Magnetic fluctuations grow by many orders of magnitude due to the small-scale chiral dynamo instability. Once the nonlinear backreaction of the generated magnetic field on fluctuations of mu(5) sets in, the ratio of these scales decreases and the dynamo saturates. When magnetic fluctuations grow sufficiently to drive turbulence via the Lorentz force before reaching maximum field strength, an additional mean-field dynamo phase is identified. The mean magnetic field grows on a scale that is larger than the integral scale of turbulence after the amplification of the fluctuating component saturates. The growth rate of the mean magnetic field is caused by a magnetic alpha effect that is proportional to the current helicity. With the onset of turbulence, the power spectrum of mu(5) develops a universal k(-1) scaling independently of its initial shape, while the magnetic energy spectrum approaches a k(-3) scaling.

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2022

Energetics of turbulence generated by chiral MHD dynamos

An asymmetry in the number density of left- and right-handed fermions is known to give rise to a new term in the induction equation that can result in a dynamo instability. At high temperatures, when a chiral asymmetry can survive for long enough, this chiral dynamo instability can amplify magnetic fields efficiently, which in turn drive turbulence via the Lorentz force. While it has been demonstrated in numerical simulations that this chiral magnetically driven turbulence exists and strongly affects the dynamics of the magnetic field, the details of this process remain unclear. The goal of this paper is to analyse the energetics of chiral magnetically driven turbulence and its effect on the generation and dynamics of the magnetic field using direct numerical simulations. We study these effects for different initial conditions, including a variation of the initial chiral chemical potential and the magnetic Prandtl number, PrM. In particular, we determine the ratio of kinetic to magnetic energy, Υ, in chiral magnetically driven turbulence. Within the parameter space explored in this study, Υ reaches a value of approximately 0.064–0.074–independently of the initial chiral asymmetry and for PrM=1. Our simulations suggest, that Υ decreases as a power law when increasing PrM by decreasing the viscosity. While the exact scaling depends on the details of the fitting criteria and the Reynolds number regime, an approximate result of Υ(PrM)=0.1 Pr−0.4M is reported. Using the findings from our numerical simulations, we analyse the energetics of chiral magnetically driven turbulence in the early Universe.

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD2019

Chiral fermion asymmetry in high-energy plasma simulations

The chiral magnetic effect (CME) is a quantum relativistic effect that describes the appearance of an additional electric current along a magnetic field. It is caused by an asymmetry between the number densities of left- and right-handed fermions, which can be maintained at high energies when the chirality flipping rate can be neglected, for example in the early Universe. The inclusion of the CME in the Maxwell equations leads to a modified set of magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) equations. The CME is studied here in numerical simulations with the Pencil Code. We discuss how the CME is implemented in the code and how the time step and the spatial resolution of a simulation need to be adjusted in presence of a chiral asymmetry. The CME plays a key role in the evolution of magnetic fields, since it results in a dynamo effect associated with an additional term in the induction equation. This term is formally similar to the alpha effect in classical mean-field MHD. However, the chiral dynamo can operate without turbulence and is associated with small spatial scales that can be, in the case of the early Universe, orders of magnitude below the Hubble radius. A chiral alpha mu effect has also been identified in mean-field theory. It occurs in the presence of turbulence, but is not related to kinetic helicity. Depending on the plasma parameters, chiral dynamo instabilities can amplify magnetic fields over many orders of magnitude. These instabilities can potentially affect the propagation of MHD waves. Our numerical simulations demonstrate strong modifications of the dispersion relation for MHD waves for large chiral asymmetry. We also study the coupling between the evolution of the chiral chemical potential and the ordinary chemical potential, which is proportional to the sum of the number densities of left- and right-handed fermions. An important consequence of this coupling is the emergence of chiral magnetic waves (CMWs). We confirm numerically that linear CMWs and MHD waves are not interacting. Our simulations suggest that the chemical potential has only a minor effect on the non-linear evolution of the chiral dynamo.

2020

Chiral fermion asymmetry in high-energy plasma simulations

2020