M. Hasan Barbhuiya

The pressure–strain interaction describes the rate per unit volume that energy is converted between bulk flow and thermal energy in neutral fluids or plasmas. The term has been written as a sum of the pressure dilatation and the collisionless analog of viscous heating referred to as Pi−D, which isolates the power density due to compressible and incompressible effects, respectively. It has been shown that Pi−D can be negative, which makes its identification as collisionless viscous heating troubling. We argue that an alternate decomposition of pressure–strain interaction can be useful for interpreting the underlying physics. Since Pi−D contains both normal deformation and shear deformation, we propose grouping the normal deformation with the pressure dilatation to describe the power density due to converging/diverging flows, with the balance describing the power density purely due to shear deformation. We then develop a kinetic theory interpretation of compression, normal deformation, and shear deformation. We use the results to determine the physical mechanisms that can make Pi−D negative. We argue that both decompositions can be useful for the study of energy conversion in weakly collisional or collisionless fluids and plasmas, and implications are discussed.