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SUMMARY:Scale-Dependent Alignment in Field-Guided MHD Turbulence - Dr Joan
 ne Mason (University of Exeter)
DTSTART:20140203T160000Z
DTEND:20140203T170000Z
UID:TALK49579@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr. Jaroslav Dudik
DESCRIPTION:Magnetised plasma turbulence pervades the Universe and is beli
 eved to play an important role in a variety of astrophysical processes\, r
 anging from heating in the solar corona to the transport of angular moment
 um in accretion discs. Unfortunately\, despite its wide ranging applicabil
 ity\, the subject still lacks a firm theoretical foundation\, even in the 
 simplest case of incompressible\, field-guided MHD turbulence.\n\nSignific
 ant advances in computational power over the last decade have led to numer
 ical simulations becoming an extremely valuable resource. The numerical re
 sults are used to test competing theoretical models and to guide future pr
 ogress. Indeed\, the results of some recent high-resolution simulations of
  driven incompressible MHD turbulence in the presence of a strong backgrou
 nd magnetic field have highlighted a number of deficiencies in our underst
 anding. Motivated by the numerical results\, in 2006 Boldyrev (Phys. Rev. 
 Lett. 96\, 115002) introduced a new phenomenological model of the energy c
 ascade. The key prediction is a process known as `scale-dependent dynamic 
 alignment'\, wherein the velocity and magnetic field fluctuations tend to 
 align within a small scale-dependent angle in the field-perpendicular plan
 e. In this talk I will introduce the theory and describe a series of high-
 resolution numerical simulations that have been specially designed in orde
 r to test the new theoretical predictions.
LOCATION:MR14\,  Centre for Mathematical Sciences\, Wilberforce Road\, Cam
 bridge
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