Imbalanced relativistic force-free magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

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

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/780/1/30· OSTI ID:22348365

Cho, Jungyeon ^[1]

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

When magnetic energy density is much larger than that of matter, as in pulsar/black hole magnetospheres, the medium becomes force-free and we need relativity to describe it. As in non-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), Alfvénic MHD turbulence in the relativistic limit can be described by interactions of counter-traveling wave packets. In this paper, we numerically study strong imbalanced MHD turbulence in such environments. Here, imbalanced turbulence means the waves traveling in one direction (dominant waves) have higher amplitudes than the opposite-traveling waves (sub-dominant waves). We find that (1) spectrum of the dominant waves is steeper than that of sub-dominant waves, (2) the anisotropy of the dominant waves is weaker than that of sub-dominant waves, and (3) the dependence of the ratio of magnetic energy densities of dominant and sub-dominant waves on the ratio of energy injection rates is steeper than quadratic (i.e., b{sub +}{sup 2}/b{sub −}{sup 2}∝(ϵ{sub +}/ϵ{sub −}){sup n} with n > 2). These results are consistent with those obtained for imbalanced non-relativistic Alfvénic turbulence. This corresponds well to the earlier reported similarity of the relativistic and non-relativistic balanced magnetic turbulence.

• OSTI ID: 22348365
• 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
ALFVEN WAVES
AMPLITUDES
ANISOTROPY
BLACK HOLES
ENERGY DENSITY
INJECTION
INTERACTIONS
MAGNETIC BALANCES
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
PULSARS
SPECTRA
TRAVELLING WAVES
TURBULENCE