English

Resistive Scaling in the Magnetic Helicity-Driven Inverse Cascade

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-02-02 v3

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 ϵH\epsilon_\mathrm{H} on this process. On dimensional grounds, we have EM(k,t)=CHϵH2/3k1E_\mathrm{M}(k,t)=C_\mathrm{H} \epsilon_\mathrm{H}^{2/3} k^{-1} where CHC_\mathrm{H} 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 kfk_\mathrm{f}, magnetic Prandtl number PmPm, grid resolution N3N^3, and Lundquist number LuLu. We obtained CHC_\mathrm{H} and corresponding error bars by calculating the compensated spectrum and investigated its dependence with LuLu and kfk_\mathrm{f}. For the CHC_\mathrm{H} - LuLu relationship, we observe strong correlations with power-law exponents of 1 and 2/3. In contrast, we find no significant correlation between CHC_\mathrm{H} and kfk_\mathrm{f}.

Keywords

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}
}