Dissipation in Compressible MHD Turbulence
Astrophysics
2009-10-30 v1
Abstract
We report results of a three dimensional, high resolution (up to 512^3) numerical investigation of supersonic compressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. We consider both forced and decaying turbulence. The model parameters are appropriate to conditions found in Galactic molecular clouds. We find that the dissipation time of turbulence is of order the flow crossing time or smaller, even in the presence of strong magnetic fields. About half the dissipation occurs in shocks. Weak magnetic fields are amplified and tangled by the turbulence, while strong fields remain well ordered.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9809357,
title = {Dissipation in Compressible MHD Turbulence},
author = {James M. Stone and Eve C. Ostriker and Charles F. Gammie},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9809357},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 Postscript figures, LaTeX, accepted by Ap.J.Lett