Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2009-03-27
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
51 pages, 14 figures, to appear on ApJ
Scientific paper
It is well-recognized that the presence of magnetic fields will lead to anisotropic energy cascade and dissipation of astrophysical turbulence. With the diffusion approximation and linear dissipation rates, we study the cascade and damping of Alfv\'en-cyclotron fluctuations in solar plasmas numerically. For an isotropic case the steady-state turbulence spectra are nearly isotropic in the inertial range and can be fitted by a single power-law function with a spectral index of -3/2, similar to the Iroshnikov-Kraichnan phenomenology. Beyond the MHD regime the kinetic effects make the spectrum softer at higher wavenumbers. In the dissipation range the turbulence spectrum cuts off at the wavenumber, where the damping rate becomes comparable to the cascade rate, and the cutoff wavenumber changes with the wave propagation direction. The angle averaged turbulence spectrum of the isotropic model resembles a broken power-law. Taking into account the Doppler effects, the model naturally reproduces the broken power-law turbulence spectra observed in the solar wind and predicts that a higher break frequency always comes along with a softer dissipation range spectrum that may be caused by the increase of the turbulence intensity, the reciprocal of the plasma \beta, and/or the angle between the solar wind velocity and the mean magnetic field. These predictions can be tested by detailed comparisons with more accurate observations.
Jiang Yanwei
Liu Siming
Petrosian Vahe
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