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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
As most of the media in space is ionized, its proper description on large scales is not hydrodynamics, but rather magnetohydrodynamics or MHD. In MHD, just like in hydrodynamics, turbulence breaks invariants and strongly modifies overall properties of the flow. MHD turbulence was actually observed in most astrophysical environments. Its properties are important for the dynamics of the intracluster medium, interstellar medium, it affects star formation rate in molecular clouds, transport properties of astrophysical fluids, an so on. I will introduce the most basic formulation of MHD turbulence, which, despite its simplicity, was a too tough a nut to crack, until recently. I will discuss recent debate about the spectral slope of MHD turbulence (-3/2 vs -5/3), the locality of energy transfer and properties of the most general type of MHD turbulence -- so called imbalanced turbulence.
Host: Peter Loxley, loxley@lanl.gov