Effects of multiple-scale driving on turbulence statistics

Journal Article · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2014 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/780/1/99· OSTI ID:22348314

Yoo, Hyunju; Cho, Jungyeon ^[1]

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1. Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Chungnam National University, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

Turbulence is ubiquitous in astrophysical fluids such as the interstellar medium and the intracluster medium. In turbulence studies, it is customary to assume that fluid is driven on a single scale. However, in astrophysical fluids, there can be many different driving mechanisms that act on different scales. If there are multiple energy-injection scales, the process of energy cascade and turbulence dynamo will be different compared with the case of the single energy-injection scale. In this work, we perform three-dimensional incompressible/compressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence simulations. We drive turbulence in Fourier space in two wavenumber ranges, 2≤k≤√12 (large scale) and 15 ≲ k ≲ 26 (small scale). We inject different amount of energy in each range by changing the amplitude of forcing in the range. We present the time evolution of the kinetic and magnetic energy densities and discuss the turbulence dynamo in the presence of energy injections at two scales. We show how kinetic, magnetic, and density spectra are affected by the two-scale energy injections and we discuss the observational implications. In the case ε {sub L} < ε {sub S}, where ε {sub L} and ε {sub S} are energy-injection rates at the large and small scales, respectively, our results show that even a tiny amount of large-scale energy injection can significantly change the properties of turbulence. On the other hand, when ε {sub L} ≳ ε {sub S}, the small-scale driving does not influence the turbulence statistics much unless ε {sub L} ∼ ε {sub S}.

• OSTI ID: 22348314
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 780; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
AMPLITUDES
ASTROPHYSICS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DENSITY
ENERGY DENSITY
FLUIDS
GALAXY CLUSTERS
INJECTION
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
SIMULATION
SPACE
SPECTRA
STATISTICS
TURBULENCE
WASTE HEAT UTILIZATION