Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 1994
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994jgr....9923421m&link_type=abstract
Journal of Geophysical Research (ISSN 0148-0227), vol. 99, no. A12, p. 23,421-23,430
Physics
Plasma Physics
11
Approximation, Flow Characteristics, Interplanetary Magnetic Fields, Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence, Mixing, Solar Wind, Transport Theory, Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin Method, Interplanetary Medium, Plasma Physics, Solar Corpuscular Radiation
Scientific paper
An alternative approach, based on a multiple scale analysis, is presented in order to reconcile the traditional Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin (WKB) approach to the modeling of interplanetary fluctuations in a mildly inhomogeneous large-scale flow with a more recently developed transport theory. This enables us to compare directly, at a formal level, the inherent structure of the two models. In the case of noninteracting, incompressible (Alven) waves, the principle difference between the two models is the presence of leading-order couplings (called 'mixing effects') in the non-WKB turbulence model which are absent in a WKB development. Within the context of linearized MHD, two cases have been identified for which the leading order non-WJB 'mixing term' does not vanish at zero wavelength. For these cases the WKB expansion is divergent, whereas the multiple-scale theory is well behaved. We have thus established that the WKB results are contained within the multiple-scale theory, but leading order mixing effects, which are likely to have important observational consequences, can never be recovered in the WKB style expansion. Properties of the higher-order terms in each expansion are also discussed, leading to the conclusion that the non-WKB hierarchy may be applicable even when the scale separation parameter is not small.
Matthaeus William H.
Oughton Sean
Zank Gary P.
Zhou Ye
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