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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 15: Astrophysics III

EP 15.12: Talk

Thursday, March 6, 2008, 17:15–17:30, KGI-Aula

Diffusion and dispersion of tracer particles in anisotropic MHD turbulence — •Angela Busse and Wolf-Christian Müller — Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Garching bei München

Turbulent transport plays an important role in many astrophysical problems such as the generation of magnetic fields by the turbulent dynamo effect and the propagation of cosmic ray particles in the interstellar medium. In these systems a mean magnetic field can often be found which leads to anisotropy of the turbulent fluctuations.

The investigation presented here studies incompressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence from the Lagrangian viewpoint by following tracers (idealized point particles) in direct numerical simulations. Several simulations with mean magnetic fields of different strengths (ranging form zero to five times the rms value of the magnetic field fluctuations) have been conducted. The statistics of the tracer particle dynamics give insight into the characteristics of turbulent diffusion and relative dispersion in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence.