Silvio Sergio Cerri

Turbulence and kinetic processes in magnetized space plasmas have been extensively investigated over the past decades via theoretical models, in-situ spacecraft measurements, and numerical simulations. In particular, multi-point high-resolution measurements from the Cluster and MMS space missions brought to light an entire new world of kinetic processes, taking place at the plasma microscales, and exposed new challenges for their theoretical interpretations. A long-lasting debate concerns the nature of ion and electron scale fluctuations in solar-wind turbulence and their dissipation via collisionless plasma mechanisms. Alongside observations, numerical simulations have always played a central role in providing a test ground for existing theories and models.

In this talk, the current advances achieved with 3D3V kinetic simulations, as well as the main questions left open (or raised) by these studies will be discussed. This includes assessing the spectral properties and intermittency of turbulent fluctuations in the sub-ion range$[1]$ and the existence of an anisotropic turbulent cascade involving the entire phase space$[2]$ (i.e., a cascade of free energy that is anisotropic with respect to the ambient magnetic field in both real and velocity space). Finally, also preliminary combined results from recent numerical studies will be presented to assess similarities and/or differences in the properties of kinetic-scale plasma turbulence, estimated from these state-of-the-art 3D kinetic simulations$[1,2,3,4]$.

$[1]$ Cerri, Servidio & Califano, ApJL 846, L18 (2017)

$[2]$ Cerri, Kunz & Califano, ApJL 856, L13 (2018)

$[3]$ Franci em et al., ApJ 853, 26 (2018)

$[4]$ Groselj em et al., PRL bf120, 105101 (2018)