Klimas, Uritsky (2007)

Authors: Alexander J. Klimas, Vadim M. Uritsky, and Maya Paczuski
Added to arXiv: (May 1, 2007)
More: PDF | arXiv

We report numerical evidence that self-organized criticality (SOC) and intermittent turbulence (IT) coexist in a resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) current sheet model that includes a local hysteretic switch to capture plasma physical processes outside of MHD, which are described in the model as current-dependent resistivity. Results from numerical simulations show scale-free avalanches of magnetic energy dissipation characteristic of SOC, as well as multi-scaling in the velocity field numerically indistinguishable from certain hierarchical turbulence theories. We suggest that SOC and IT may be complementary descriptions of dynamical states realized by driven current sheets -- which occur ubiquitously in astrophysical and space plasmas.

@article{klimas2007soc,
title={{Self-Organized Criticality and Intermittent Turbulence in an MHD Current Sheet with a Threshold Instability}},
author={Klimas, A.J. and Uritsky, V.M. and Paczuski, M.},
journal={Arxiv preprint astro-ph/0701486},
year={2007}
}