English

Generation of Solenoidal Modes and Magnetic Fields in Turbulence Driven by Compressive Driving

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2020-04-29 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

We perform numerical simulations of hydrodynamic (HD) and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence driven by compressive driving to study generation of solenoidal velocity component and small-scale magnetic field. We mainly focus on the effects of mean magnetic field (B0B_0) and the sonic Mach number (MsM_s). We also consider two different driving schemes in terms of correlation timescale of forcing vectors: a finite-correlated driving and a delta-correlated driving. The former has a longer correlation timescale of forcing vectors, which is comparable to large-eddy turnover time, than the latter. Our findings are as follows. First, when we fix the value of B0B_0, the level of solenoidal velocity component after saturation increases as MsM_s increases. A similar trend is observed for generation of magnetic field when B0B_0 is small. Second, when we fix the value of MsM_s, HD and MHD simulations result in similar level of the solenoidal component when B0B_0 \lesssim 0.2 (or Alfven Mach number of \sim 5). However, the level increases when B0B_0 \gtrsim 0.2. Roughly speaking, the magnetic energy density after saturation is a linearly increasing function of B0B_0 irrespective of MsM_s. Third, generation of solenoidal velocity component is not sensitive to numerical resolution, but that of magnetic energy density is mildly sensitive. Lastly, when initial conditions are same, the finite-correlated driving always produces more solenoidal velocity and small-scale magnetic field components than the delta-correlated driving. We additionally analyze the vorticity equation to understand why higher MsM_s and B0B_0 yield larger quantity of the solenoidal velocity component.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.05154,
  title  = {Generation of Solenoidal Modes and Magnetic Fields in Turbulence Driven by Compressive Driving},
  author = {Jeonghoon Lim and Jungyeon Cho and Heesun Yoon},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.05154},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

20 pages, 23 figures, 1 table