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| Paper: |
Residual Energy in Weak and Strong MHD Turbulence |
| Volume: |
459, 6th International Conference of Numerical Modeling of Space Plasma Flows (ASTRONUM 2011) |
| Page: |
3 |
| Authors: |
Boldyrev, S.; Perez, J. C.; Wang, Y. |
| Abstract: |
Recent numerical and observational studies revealed that spectra of magnetic and velocity fluctuations in MHD turbulence have different scaling indexes.
This intriguing feature has been recently explained in the case of weak MHD turbulence, that is, turbulence consisting of weakly interacting Alfvén waves.
However, astrophysical turbulence is strong in majority of cases. In the present work, we propose a unifying picture that allows one to address weak and strong
MHD turbulence on the same footing. We argue that magnetic and kinetic energies are different in both weak and strong MHD turbulence. Their difference, the
so-called residual energy, is spontaneously generated by turbulence, it has the Fourier spectrum Er(k) = Ev(k) – Eb(k) ∝ – fw(k∥/k⊥)k⊥-2 in weak turbulence, and Er(k) ∝ – fs(k∥/k⊥) k⊥-3 in strong turbulence. Here fw,s(x) are functions declining fast for x > Cw,s and
not significantly varying for x < Cw,s with some constants Cw,s, and k∥ and k⊥ the field-parallel and field-perpendicular wave vectors with
respect to the applied strong uniform magnetic field. |
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