Effect of magnetic islands on the localization of kinetic Alfven wave

Recent studies have revealed an intimate link between magnetic reconnection and turbulence. Observations show that kinetic Alfven waves (KAWs) play a very crucial role in magnetic reconnection and have been a topic of interest from decades in the context of turbulence and particle heating. In the present paper, we study the role that KAW plays in the formation of coherent structures/ current sheets when KAW is propagating in the pre-existing fully developed chain of magnetic islands. We derived the dynamical equation of KAW in the presence of chain of magnetic islands and solved it using numerical simulations well as analytic tools. Due to pre- existing chain of magnetic islands, KAW splits into coherent structures and the scale size of these structures along transverse directions (with respect to background magnetic field) comes out to be either less than or greater than ion gyro radius. Therefore, the present work may be the first step towards understanding how magnetic reconnection generated islands may affect the KAW localization and eventually contribute to magnetic turbulence. In this way the present approach may be helpful to understand the interplay between magnetic reconnection and turbulence in ion diffusion region. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.