English

Numerical Simulations of MHD Turbulence in Accretion Disks

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

We review numerical simulations of MHD turbulence. The last decade has witnessed fundamental advances both in the technical capabilities of direct numerical simulation, and in our understanding of key physical processes. Magnetic fields tap directly into the free energy sources in a sufficiently ionized gas. The result is that adverse angular velocity and adverse temperature gradients, not the classical angular momentum and entropy gradients, destabilize laminar and stratified flow. This has profound consequences for astrophysical accretion flows, and has opened the door to a new era of numerical simulation experiments.}

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0203353,
  title  = {Numerical Simulations of MHD Turbulence in Accretion Disks},
  author = {Steven A. Balbus and John F. Hawley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0203353},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

To appear in ``Turbulence and Magnetic Fields in Astrophysics,'' eds. E. Falgarone and T. Passot, Lecture Notes in Physics, 20 pages