Particle Diffusion in Turbulent Electric Fields

The statistics of charged particle dynamics in turbulent plasmas have been studied in a numerical experiment which models a turbulent plasma as a system of uncorrelated plasma waves. The ensemble averaged distribution function roughly “diffuses” in velocity space in both weak and strong field regimes. The experimental data are consistent with Dupree's prediction of a diffusion coefficient having a broadened wave‐particle resonance and scaling quadratically in the electric field strength for weak fields, and proportional to $E^{\text{3/2}}$ for stronger fields.