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Structure Function Scaling in Compressible Super-Alfvenic MHD Turbulence

Authors :
Raul Jimenez
Stanislav Boldyrev
Aake Nordlund
Paolo Padoan
Publication Year :
2003

Abstract

Supersonic turbulent flows of magnetized gas are believed to play an important role in the dynamics of star-forming clouds in galaxies. Understanding statistical properties of such flows is crucial for developing a theory of star formation. In this letter we propose a unified approach for obtaining the velocity scaling in compressible and super--Alfv\'{e}nic turbulence, valid for arbitrary sonic Mach number, \ms. We demonstrate with numerical simulations that the scaling can be described with the She--L\'{e}v\^{e}que formalism, where only one parameter, interpreted as the Hausdorff dimension of the most intense dissipative structures, needs to be varied as a function of \ms. Our results thus provide a method for obtaining the velocity scaling in interstellar clouds once their Mach numbers have been inferred from observations.<br />Comment: published in Physical Review Letters

Details

Language :
English
Database :
OpenAIRE
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....9f5b8221e7fb6b3f943823000450b1ae