Application of the BxC toolkit to the study of cosmic rays transport

The study of turbulent magnetic fields is crucial in modern astrophysics due to the omnipresence of plasma in a turbulent state. The state-of-the-art approach to the study of turbulence entails the use of numerical simulations, whose high computational cost unfortunately impedes a large variety of studies. To solve this issue, synthetic turbulence models have been developed, in which turbulent fields are generated analytically at a much lower computational cost. 

In the present work we focus on BxC, a Python-based toolkit that generates realistic turbulent magnetic fields through a combination of a geometric and analytical approach. Due to a relatively large set of input parameters, BxC allows for full customization of the statistical properties of the generated fields. Recent developments of the code improve on the possibility to reproduce realistic scenarios, in particular allowing for anisotropic fields and/or ‘structured’ turbulent fields as an alternative to purely turbulent ones.  

In view of practical application of the BxC toolkit, the code has been coupled with the MPI-AMRVAC framework, a parallelized finite-volume solver for partial differential equations. This combined framework has then been applied to the study of cosmic rays transport by means of test particle simulations. The presentation will introduce the audience to the combined approach used, highlighting its advantages and focusing on the results obtained from this study.