Space-filter techniques for quasi-neutral hybrid-kinetic models

Abstract

The space-filter approach has proved a fundamental tool in studying turbulence in neutral fluids, providing the ability to analyze scale-to-scale energy transfer in configuration space. It is well known that turbulence in plasma presents challenges different from neutral fluids, especially when the scale of interests include kinetic effects. The space-filter approach is still largely unexplored for kinetic plasma. Here we derive the space-filtered (or, equivalently "coarse-grained") equations in configuration space for a quasi-neutral hybrid-kinetic plasma model, in which ions are fully kinetic and electrons are a neutralizing fluid. Different models and closures for the electron fluid are considered, including finite electron-inertia effects and full electrons' pressure-tensor dynamics. Implications for the cascade of turbulent fluctuations in real space depending on different approximations are discussed.