MHD turbulence in expanding/collapsing media

  • Park, Jun-Seong (Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Chungnam National University) ;
  • Ryu, Dong-Su (Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Chungnam National University) ;
  • Cho, Jung-Yeon (Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Chungnam National University)
  • Published : 2011.04.05

Abstract

We investigate the driven magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence by including the effect of the expansion and collapse of background medium. The main goal is to quantify the evolution and saturation of the strength and characteristic length scales of magnetic fields in expanding and collapsing media. Our findings are as follows. First, with the expansion and collapse of background medium, the time evolution of the magnetic and kinetic energy densities depends on the nature of forcing as well as the rate of expansion and collapse. Second, at scales close to the energy injection (or driving) scale, the slope of magnetic field power spectrum shallows with expansion but steepens with collapse. Third, various characteristic length scales, relative to the energy injection scale, decrease with expansion but increase with collapse. We discuss the astrophysical implications of our results.

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