1202.3453 (Stanislav Boldyrev et al.)

Residual Energy in Weak and Strong MHD Turbulence    [PDF]

Stanislav Boldyrev, Jean Carlos Perez, Yuxuan Wang

Recent numerical and observational studies revealed that spectra of magnetic and velocity fluctuations in MHD turbulence have different scaling indexes. This intriguing feature has been recently explained in the case of weak MHD turbulence, that is, turbulence consisting of weakly interacting Alfven waves. However, astrophysical turbulence is strong in majority of cases. In the present work, we propose a unifying picture that allows one to address weak and strong MHD turbulence on the same footing. We argue that magnetic and kinetic energies are different in both weak and strong MHD turbulence. Their difference, the so-called residual energy, is spontaneously generated by turbulence, it has the Fourier spectrum E_r(k)=E_v(k)-E_b(k) \propto -f_w(k_||/k_perp) k_perp^{-2} in weak turbulence, and E_r(k) \propto -f_s(k_||/k_perp) k_perp^{-3} in strong turbulence. Here f_w,s(x) are functions declining fast for x>C_w,s and not significantly varying for $xView original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.3453