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Understanding the removal of energy from turbulent fluctuations in amagnetized plasma and the consequent energization of the constituent plasmaparticles is a major goal of heliophysics and astrophysics. Previous work hasshown that nonlinear interactions among counterpropagating Alfven waves---orAlfven wave collisions---are the fundamental building block of astrophysicalplasma turbulence and naturally generate current sheets in the stronglynonlinear limit. A nonlinear gyrokinetic simulation of a strong Alfven wavecollision is used to examine the damping of the electromagnetic fluctuationsand the associated energization of particles that occurs in self-consistentlygenerated current sheets. A simple model explains the flow of energy due to thecollisionless damping and the associated particle energization, as well as thesubsequent thermalization of the particle energy by collisions. The netparticle energization by the parallel electric field is shown to be spatiallyintermittent, and the nonlinear evolution is essential in enabling that spatialnon-uniformity. Using the recently developed field-particle correlationtechnique, we show that particles resonant with the Alfven waves in thesimulation dominate the energy transfer, demonstrating conclusively that Landaudamping plays a key role in the spatially intermittent damping of theelectromagnetic fluctuations and consequent energization of the particles inthis strongly nonlinear simulation.

Spatially Localized Particle Energization by Landau Damping in Current Sheets Produced by Strong Alfven Wave Collisions