English

Spectrum of weak magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2009-11-25 v1 Plasma Physics

Abstract

Turbulence of magnetohydrodynamic waves in nature and in the laboratory is generally cross-helical or non-balanced, in that the energies of Afv\'en waves moving in opposite directions along the guide magnetic field are unequal. Based on high-resolution numerical simulations it is proposed that such turbulence spontaneously generates a condensate of the residual energy EvEbE_v-E_b at small field-parallel wave numbers. As a result, the energy spectra of counter-propagating Alfv\'en waves are not scale-invariant. In the limit of infinite Reynolds number, the universality is asymptotically restored at large wave numbers, and both spectra attain the scaling E(k)k2E(k)\propto k_{\perp}^{-2}. The generation of condensate is apparently related to the breakdown of mirror symmetry in non-balanced turbulence.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0907.4475,
  title  = {Spectrum of weak magnetohydrodynamic turbulence},
  author = {Stanislav Boldyrev and Jean Carlos Perez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0907.4475},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures