Strong magnetohydrodynamic turbulence with cross helicity

Journal Article · Sat May 15 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3396370· OSTI ID:21371185

Perez, Jean Carlos; Boldyrev, Stanislav ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1150 University Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53706 (United States)

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) provides the simplest description of magnetic plasma turbulence in a variety of astrophysical and laboratory systems. MHD turbulence with nonzero cross helicity is often called imbalanced, as it implies that the energies of Alfven fluctuations propagating parallel and antiparallel the background field are not equal. Recent analytical and numerical studies have revealed that at every scale, MHD turbulence consists of regions of positive and negative cross helicity, indicating that such turbulence is inherently locally imbalanced. In this paper, results from high resolution numerical simulations of steady-state incompressible MHD turbulence, with and without cross helicity are presented. It is argued that the inertial range scaling of the energy spectra (E{sup +}-) of fluctuations moving in opposite directions is independent of the amount of cross helicity. When cross helicity is nonzero, E{sup +} and E{sup -} maintain the same scaling, but have differing amplitudes depending on the amount of cross helicity.

• OSTI ID: 21371185
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 17; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ALFVEN WAVES
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ENERGY SPECTRA
FLUCTUATIONS
FLUID MECHANICS
HELICITY
HYDRODYNAMICS
HYDROMAGNETIC WAVES
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
MECHANICS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PLASMA
PLASMA SIMULATION
SIMULATION
SPECTRA
TURBULENCE
VARIATIONS