Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2005-03-02
Astrophys.J. 626 (2005) L37
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
10 pages, 1 figure; minor changes to match published version
Scientific paper
10.1086/431649
We propose a phenomenological model for incompressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. We argue that nonlinear-wave interaction weakens as the energy cascade proceeds to small scales, however, the anisotropy of fluctuations along the large-scale magnetic field increases, which makes turbulence strong at all scales. To explain the weakening of the interaction, we propose that small-scale fluctuations of the velocity and magnetic fields become increasingly dynamically aligned as their scale decreases, so that turbulent eddies become locally anisotropic in the plane perpendicular to the large-scale magnetic field. In the limit of weak anisotropy, that is, weak large-scale magnetic field, our model reproduces the Goldreich-Sridhar spectrum, while the limit of strong anisotropy, that is, strong large-scale magnetic field, corresponds to the Iroshnikov-Kraichnan scaling of the spectrum. This is in good agreement with recent numerical results.
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