Gyrokinetic Particle Simulation of Alfven Turbulence

The issue of spectral cascade and plasma heating in Alfvenic turbulence is a major unsolved problem in plasma physics. Gyrokinetic particle simulation is applied in this work to study the cascade and heating in Alfvenic turbulence with fully self-consistent nonlinear kinetic effects. A massively parallel particle-in-cell 3D code with gyrokinetic ions and fluid-kinetic hybrid electrons is used to study spectral cascading and dissipation of Alfvenic turbulence. A magnetic energy spectrum with index of ``-5/3'' in the inertial range has been observed from the gyrokinetic simulation. The code will be used to study energy dissipation in the Alfvenic turbulence on the spatial scale of the order of ion gyro-radius.