Resistive Scaling in the Magnetic Helicity-Driven Inverse Cascade
Abstract
The inverse cascade in MHD turbulence plays a crucial role in various astrophysical processes such as galaxy cluster formation, solar and stellar dynamo mechanisms, and the evolution of primordial magnetic fields in the early universe. A standard numerical approach involves injecting magnetic helicity at intermediate length scales to generate a secondary, time-dependent spectral peak that gradually propagates toward larger scales. Previous simulations have already suggested a resistive dependence of inverse transfer rates and demonstrated the significant influence of magnetic helicity flux density on this process. On dimensional grounds, we have where represents a potentially universal dimensionless coefficient analogous to the Kolmogorov constant. We present a summary of the 25 distinct simulations conducted with the \textsc{Pencil Code}, systematically varying the forcing wavenumber , magnetic Prandtl number , grid resolution , and Lundquist number . We obtained and corresponding error bars by calculating the compensated spectrum and investigated its dependence with and . For the - relationship, we observe strong correlations with power-law exponents of 1 and 2/3. In contrast, we find no significant correlation between and .
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.21141,
title = {Resistive Scaling in the Magnetic Helicity-Driven Inverse Cascade},
author = {Jiyao Zhang and Axel Brandenburg},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.21141},
year = {2026}
}