Extended fluid models: Pressure tensor effects and equilibria

We consider the use of “extended fluid models” as a viable alternative to computationally demanding kinetic simulations in order to manage the global large scale evolution of a collisionless plasma while accounting for the main effects that come into play when spatial micro-scales of the order of the ion inertial scale di and of the thermal ion Larmor radius ϱi are formed. We present an extended two-fluid model that retains finite Larmor radius (FLR) corrections to the ion pressure tensor while electron inertia terms and heat fluxes are neglected. Within this model we calculate analytic FLR plasma equilibria in the presence of a shear flow and elucidate the role of the magnetic field asymmetry. Using a Hybrid Vlasov code, we show that these analytic equilibria offer a significant improvement with respect to conventional magnetohydrodynamic shear-flow equilibria when initializing kinetic simulations.