The inertial range of weak magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in the interstellar medium
I. McIvor;
MNRAS, 1977, 178, 85
ABSTRACT:The inertial range of weak MHD turbulence in the interstellar medium is calculated.
The spectrum in the inertial range is derived from wave-wave interaction
formulas.
The interstellar medium is considered as consisting of four types of
regions: clouds, cool intercloud regions, hot intercloud regions, and
tunnels.
The damping of the turbulence is calculated for four mechanisms:
ion-neutral collisions, thermal conductivity, viscosity, and
resistivity.
Ion-neutral collisions are found to be the dominant damping mechanism in the clouds
and cool intercloud regions, but may be insufficient to terminate the
inertial range in the hot intercloud regions.
Thermal conductivity is so high
in the tunnels that no inertial range is expected.
The longest inertial
range is expected to be in the hot intercloud regions, but the length is very
dependent on the temperature and ionization structure of those regions.
KEYWORDS: damping, interstellar matter, magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, particle collisions, astronomical models, damping, ionic collisions, isotropic turbulence, wave attenuation, wave interaction
PERSOKEY:turbulence, ,
CODE: mcivor77