Anisotropy of velocity spectra in quasistaticmagnetohydrodynamic turbulence

• Published in: Physics of fluids (1994) 2008-06, Vol.20 (6), p.065110-065110-5
• Main Authors: Burattini, Paolo, Kinet, Maxime, Carati, Daniele, Knaepen, Bernard
• Format: Article
• ISSN: 1070-6631; 1089-7666
• DOI: 10.1063/1.2940142

We consider homogeneous magnetohydrodynamic turbulence subject to a uniform magnetic field B at low magnetic Reynolds number. The flow, which is computed with direct simulations, is statistically stationary. By examining one-dimensional velocity spectra, we show that the anisotropy induced by B is scale dependent; at small scales, the velocity component parallel to B is more attenuated than that perpendicular to B . Although in contrast with results in the literature based on three-dimensional spectra, the present conclusion is demonstrated to be consistent with the effective turbulent energy distribution in Fourier space and the definition of the one-dimensional spectrum. Further, it is found that the anisotropy is minimum in a range of length scales about the size of the Taylor microscale. It is argued that this range is the vestige of the inertial range, which is gradually destroyed as B increases.