Cross-scale nonlinear coupling and plasma energization by Alfven waves

We present a new channel for the nonlocal transport of wave energy from the large (MHD) scales to the small (kinetic) scales generated by the resonant decay of MHD Alfven waves into kinetic Alfven waves. This process does not impose any restriction on the wave numbers or frequencies of initial MHD waves, which makes it superior compared to the mechanisms of spectral transport studied before. Because of dissipative properties of the nonlinearly driven kinetic Alfven waves, the decay leads to plasma heating and particle acceleration, which is observed in a variety of space and astrophysical plasmas. Two examples in the solar corona and the terrestrial magnetosphere are briefly discussed.