Magnetic discontinuities in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and in the solar wind.

Recent measurements of solar wind turbulence report the presence of intermittent, exponentially distributed angular discontinuities in the magnetic field. In this Letter, we study whether such discontinuities can be produced by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. We detect the discontinuities by measuring the fluctuations of the magnetic field direction, Δθ, across fixed spatial increments Δx in direct numerical simulations of MHD turbulence with an imposed uniform guide field B(0). A large region of the probability density function (pdf) for Δθ is found to follow an exponential decay, proportional to exp(-Δθ/θ(*)), with characteristic angle θ(*)≈(14°)(b(rms)/B(0))(0.65) for a broad range of guide-field strengths. We find that discontinuities observed in the solar wind can be reproduced by MHD turbulence with reasonable ratios of b(rms)/B(0). We also observe an excess of small angular discontinuities when Δx becomes small, possibly indicating an increasing statistical significance of dissipation-scale structures. The structure of the pdf in this case closely resembles the two-population pdf seen in the solar wind. We thus propose that strong discontinuities are associated with inertial-range MHD turbulence, while weak discontinuities emerge from dissipation-range turbulence. In addition, we find that the structure functions of the magnetic field direction exhibit anomalous scaling exponents, which indicates the existence of intermittent structures.

Spectrum of weak magnetohydrodynamic turbulence.

Turbulence of magnetohydrodynamic waves in nature and in the laboratory is generally cross-helical or nonbalanced, in that the energies of Alfvén waves moving in opposite directions along the guide magnetic field are unequal. Based on high-resolution numerical simulations it is proposed that such turbulence spontaneously generates a condensate of the residual energy E(v) - E(b) at small field-parallel wave numbers. As a result, the energy spectra of Alfvén waves are generally not scale invariant in an inertial interval of limited extent. In the limit of an infinite Reynolds number, the universality is asymptotically restored at large wave numbers, and both spectra attain the scaling E(k) proportional to k(perpendicular)(-2). The generation of a condensate is apparently related to the breakdown of mirror symmetry in nonbalanced turbulence.

Role of cross-helicity in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence.

Strong incompressible three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence is investigated by means of high-resolution direct numerical simulations. The simulations show that the configuration space is characterized by regions of positive and negative cross-helicity, corresponding to highly aligned or antialigned velocity and magnetic field fluctuations, even when the average cross-helicity is zero. To elucidate the role of cross-helicity, the spectra and structure of turbulence are obtained in "imbalanced" regions where cross-helicity is nonzero. When averaged over regions of positive and negative cross-helicity, the result is consistent with the simulations of balanced turbulence. An analytical explanation for the obtained results is proposed.