Cambridge Mathematical Tripos Part III (CASM)

MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS AND TURBULENCE
(16 lectures, Michaelmas Term 2006)

Alexander Schekochihin

COURSE BLOG

The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all
his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.

Michael Faraday.

Here I will post some information on the material we have covered in the past lectures, plans for the upcoming lectures, suggestions for additional reading, original references, example sheets, scheduling notices etc.

Note that my presentation will not necessarily be based on the reading suggestions below. These are not obligatory, they are given simply so that you know where to look for an alternative (and in many cases much more extensive) account of the material discussed in class.

Lecture 1 (9.10.06)  

Preview of the course (pdf), suggested reading (pdf).
Introduction: magnetic fields and turbulence in astrophysics, physics from large to small scales, universality, Richardson cascade.

Here is a wonderful illustration of turbulence as multiscale disorder: this is a paper by Yokokawa et al. describing the biggest to date direct numerical simulation of turbulence done on the Earth Simulator machine in Japan. If you look carefully at the pictures, you should start having some reservations about the qualitative picture I described in my lecture. Do ask me about these reservations.

There will be no lecture on Wednesday 11.10.06 (we'll schedule a make-up lecture later). The next lecture is on Monday 16.10.06.

Lecture 2 (16.10.05) & Lecture 3 (18.10.05)

Statistical description of turbulence.
Correlation functions.
Symmetries (homogeneity, isotropy, parity). Incompressibility.
Spectrum.
The closure problem.

Reading: Davidson-Turbulence, §6.2.1 (x space), §8.1 (k space), 8.2 (closure models)
                Batchelor, Chapters II-III
                Monin & Yaglom, Chapter 6 --- the definitive account of correlation functions
                McComb (on closures)

A downloadable account of correlation functions in d dimensions: Appendix A in A. A. Schekochihin, S. A. Boldyrev & R. M. Kulsrud, Astrophys. J. 567, 828 (2002) (not very pedagogically written, I am afraid).

Lecture 4 (23.10.05) & Lecture 5 (25.10.05)

Kolmogorov's 1941 dimensional theory of turbulence.

Reading: Landau & Lifshitz §33 --- read this!
                Davidson-MHD §7.1.3
                Davidson-Turbulence, Chapter 5
                Frisch, Chapter 7
                Batchelor, Chapter VI
                Monin & Yaglom §21, (see §24 on particle diffusion)

Kolmogorov's original paper: A. N. Kolmogorov, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 30, 299 (1941) [reprinted Proc. Roy. Soc. A 434, 9 (1991)].
Here are two interesting historical papers:
A. M. Yaglom, Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech. 26, 1 (1994) on A. N. Kolmogorov and the founding of the Russian school of turbulence.
H. K. Moffatt, Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech. 34, 19 (2002) on G. K. Batchelor and the Cambridge school of turbulence.

In my lectures this year, I will not cover Kolmogorov's 4/5 law, but you should read about it (obviously, this material is not examinable). The reading suggestions are
Landau & Lifshitz §34
Frisch Chapter 6
Davidson-Turbulence §§6.2, 6.3 (the latter section treats the decay laws), 8.2 (dynamics in k space)
Davidson-MHD §§7.1.4, 7.1.5 (these are more concise versions of §§6.2, 6.3 of his Turbulence book)
Batchelor Chapter V
The original von Karman-Howarth paper: T. de Karman & L. Howarth, Proc. Roy. Soc. A 164, 192 (1938).
Kolmogorov's original paper on the 4/5 law:
A. N. Kolmogorov, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 32, 19 (1941) [reprinted Proc. Roy. Soc. A 434, 15 (1991)].
If you find it difficult to work out the 4/5 law etc. from the above, you may ask me for some notes from last-year's version of the course (there was more time, so I covered this material in class).

Further material on turbulence, also omitted in this year's version of the course, concerns intermittency models. Here are some reading suggestions on this subject:
Frisch Chapter 8; see §6.4 for detailed discussion of Landau's objection to Kolmogorov's theory
Davidson-Turbulence §§6.5 (intro to intermittency), 7.3 (overview of numerical results)
Biskamp-MHD Turbulence §§7.1,7.2,7.4
Kolmogorov's original paper on the refined-similarity hypothesis: A. N. Kolmogorov, J. Fluid Mech. 13, 82 (1962) [not on the web, alas, but all back volumes of JFM can be found on the ground floor of Pavilion G].
Here are some key recent papers on the She-Lévêque model of intermittency (not terribly clear except, perhaps, the last one):
Z.-S. She and E. Lévêque, Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 336 (1994)
B. Dubrulle, Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 959 (1994)
Z.-S. She and E. C. Waymire, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 262 (1995)
S. Boldyrev, Astrophys. J.569, 841 (2002) 
Discovery of extended self-similarity: R. Benzi et al., Phys. Rev. E 48, R29 (1993)
Again, on intermittency, I can give you some lecture notes.

Here is EXAMPLE SHEET I (pdf) --- you know enough to do it after Lecture 5. I will discuss these examples in Ex. Class I. Note that Questions 2-3 take you through the dimensional theory of scalar turbulence, so even if you are not planning to take the exam, I urge you to come to the ex. class. If you have any trouble at all with the questions, do come to see me before the ex. class --- I'll be happy to help you.

Lecture 6 (27.10.05) --- MAKE-UP LECTURE on Friday 27 October @ 11:00-12:00 in MR14

MHD equations: magnetic forces, the induction equation.

Reading: Davidson-MHD §§1.1-1.4, 2.1-2.6, 3.8-3.9 (equations; also 3.1-3.7 if you want to brush up on your fluid mechanics)
                Goedbloed & Poedts §4.1 (equations)
                Kulsrud §§3.1 (equations), 4.2 (forces)
                Maxwell's poetry (extracurricular)

If you would like to learn how to derive the MHD equations properly from the kinetic plasma theory, see Sturrock §§11.1-11.8,12.1 or Goedbloed & Poedts §§2.4.1, 3.
Three more references on kinetic theory are

Yu. L. Klimontovich, The Statistical Theory of Non-Equilibrium Processes in a Plasma (MIT Press 1967) --- the mathematical construction of the kinetic theory
S. I. Braginskii, Reviews of Plasma Physics 1, 205 (1965) --- original calculation of collisional transport terms (viscosity, thermal diffusivity, magnetic diffusivity)
P. Helander & D. J. Sigmar, Collisional Transport in Magnetized Plasmas (CUP 2002) --- an excellent recent monograph on collisional transport, contains everything you need to know and more!

Lecture 7 (30.10.05)

Magnetic diffusion. Magnetic Reynolds number.
Flux freezing.
Zeldovich rope dynamo.

Reading: Davidson-MHD §§2.7 (diffusion), 4.1-4.3 (flux freezing)
                Sturrock §§12.2 (flux freezing), 12.3 (diffusion)
                Kulsrud §§3.2-3.3 (flux freezing and its astrophysical applications)
                Zeldovich et al. §9.1 (dynamo)

The induction equation is extremely reach: books have been written just about solutions of this equation --- such studies often have to do with the dynamo problem. We will return to some aspects of this problem in the part of the course that deals with MHD turbulence. There will be more dynamo in Prof. Proctor's course next term. In the meanwhile, if you feel you must know more now, see books by Parker, Moffatt, Childress & Gilbert from your reading list. Here are some extra dynamo books for the insatiable:

M. R. E. Proctor & A. D. Gilbert, Lectures on Solar and Planetary Dynamos(CUP 1994) --- a widely used set of lecture notes from a Newton Institute workshop
A. A. Ruzmaikin, A. M. Shukurov & D. D. Sokoloff, Magnetic Fields of Galaxies (Kluwer 1988) --- everything you ever wanted to know about the mean-field dynamo theory for galaxies
F. Krause & K.-H. Rädler, Mean-Field Magnetohydrodynamics and Dynamo Theory (Pergamon 1980) --- a VERY meticulous exposition of mean-field theory by people who invented it
V. I. Arnold & B. A. Khesin, Topological Methods in Hydrodynamics (Springer 1998) ---- their chapter on kinematic dynamo tells you how the dynamo problem might appeal to a pure mathematician


Lecture 8 (1.11.05)

Lagrangian MHD. Cauchy solution of the induction equation. Action principle.

Lagrangian formulation of MHD and the action principle are discussed in the excellent original paper by Newcomb:
W. A. Newcomb, Nucl. Fusion: 1962 Supplement, Part 2, p. 451 (distributed in class)
A more recent useful reference is D.
Pfirsch & R. N. Sudan, Phys. Fluids B 5, 2052 (1993)

Here is an example of a very sophisticated nonlinear instability calculation based on the Lagrangian MHD formalism: S. C. Cowley & M. Artun, Phys. Reports 283, 185 (1997)

Reading: Sturrock §§16.1-16.4 (action principle)
                Kulsrud §§4.8 (Cauchy solution), 4.7 (action principle)

Example Class IThursday 2.11.05 @ 14:00-16:00 in MR4

Lecture 9 (3.11.05) --- MAKE-UP LECTURE on Friday 3 November @ 11:00-12:00 in MR14

Conservation laws: mass, momentum, energy, helicity, cross-helicity.

Reading: Kulsrud §§4.3-4.5
                Goedbloed & Poedts §§4.3 (conservation laws), 4.4 (same with dissipative terms)
                Davidson-MHD §4.4 (helicity)
                Sturrock §13.8 (helicity)

If you wish to read something about the energy principle, MHD equilibria, MHD stability etc., here are some pointers:
Energy principle: Kulsrud §7.2, 
Sturrock §§16.1-16.4, Davidson-MHD §6.4, Goedbloed & Poedts §§6.1-6.6 (a very extensive account of the MHD stability theory)
The original famous paper on the MHD energy principle is I. B. Bernstein, E. A. Frieman, M. D. Kruskal & R. M. Kulsrud, Proc. Roy. Soc. London A244, 17 (1958)
MHD equilibrium: Kulsrud §4.9 (cylindrical equilibria), Sturrock §§13.1-13.7, 13.10 (force-free fields), 13.9 (Woltjer theorem)
Instabilities:
Sturrock §§15.1-15.5 (z-pinch instabilities), Kulsrud §7.3 (interchange and Parker instabilities), Goedbloed & Poedts §§7.2, 7.5, 9.4 (various fairly advanced stability calculations)


If you would like some notes on these things, ask me and I will give you a copy of 2005 lecture notes/example-sheet solutions where I work out the energy principle, instabilities of the cylindrical equilibria, and the instabilities in the presence of gravity (interchange instabilities) systematically using the Lagrangian approach. 

Lecture 10 (6.11.05) & Lecture 11 (13.11.05)

Linear MHD waves.
Finite-amplitude Alfvén waves. Elsässer variables.

Reading: Sturrock §14.1
               Kulsrud §§5.1-5.4
               Goedbloed & Poedts §§5.1-5.2
               Davidson-MHD §6.1

There will be no lectures on Wednesdays 8.11.06 and 15.11.06

Lecture 12 (20.11.05)

Alfvénic (anisotropic MHD) turbulence.

Reading: You may find this review (§§1-2) and references therein useful.

Here are the some papers on MHD turbulence (IK and GS):
P. S. Iroshnikov, Sov. Astron. 7, 566 (1964) --- English translation of Iroshnikov's original paper
R. H. Kraichnan, Phys. Fluids 8, 1385 (1965) --- Kraichnan's original paper
M. Dobrowolny, A. Mangeney & P. Veltri, Phys. Rev. Lett. 45, 144 (1980) --- IK theory with imbalanced cascades (more + than - waves)
J. C. Higdon, Astrophys. J. 285, 109 (1984) --- early precursor of the GS theory
P. Goldreich & S. Sridhar, Astrophys. J. 438, 763 (1995) --- original GS paper
Y. Lithwick, P. Goldreich & S. Sridhar, astro-ph/0607243 --- GS theory with imbalanced cascades
S. Boldyrev, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 115002 (2006) --- a modification of GS theory that has anisotropy but a -3/2 spectrum

On weak turbulence, there is a lot of literature one could consult.
The main points of the formal weak turbulence scheme can be learned from Zakharov, Lvov, Falkovich §§2.1.1-2.1.5 (obviously, to understand everything properly, you need to read the whole book!)

Main papers on weak turbulence of Alfvén waves are (this is the order in which the main contributions have appeared):
S. Sridhar & P. Golreich, Astrophys. J. 432, 612 (1994) --- 4-wave theory (3-wave interactions argued empty)
D. Montgomery & W. H. Matthaeus, Astrophys. J. 447, 706 (1995) --- 3-wave interations defended
C. S. Ng & A. Bhattacharjee, Astrophys. J. 465, 845 (1996) --- 3-wave interactions demonstrated
C. S. Ng & A. Bhattacharjee, Phys. Plasmas 4, 605 (1997) --- more of the above
P. Goldreich & S. Sridhar, Astrophys. J. 485, 680 (1997) --- 3-wave interactions acknowledged and further analysed
S. Galtier et al., J. Plasma Phys. 63, 447 (2000) --- a careful calculation
A. Bhattachrjee & C. S. Ng, Astrophys. J. 548, 318 (2001) --- a numerical study
S. Galtier et al., Astrophys. J. 564, L49 (2002) --- a simpler version of their calculation (closest to what I did in class)
Y. Lithwick & P. Goldreich, Astrophys. J. 582, 1220 (2003) --- another version of the weak-turbulence calculation (plus imbalance between + and - waves), previous work reexamined


I also have some lecture notes on weak turbulence that I can copy for you if there is interest.


Lecture 13 (22.11.05) & Lecture 14 (24.11.05) --- MAKE-UP LECTURE on Friday 24 November @ 11:00-12:00 in MR14

Reduced MHD.
Decoupling of the 5 cascades.

Reading: This review (§2) and references therein.

Here is EXAMPLE SHEET II (pdf)

Lecture 15 (27.11.05) & Lecture 16 (29.11.05)

Small-scale dynamo in a linear velocity field.
Saturation of small-scale dynamo. Isotropic MHD turbulence.

Reading: This review (§3) and references therein.

There is a lot you can do analytically on the small-scale dynamo if you consider the velocity field to be a random Gaussian white noise --- this is called the Kazantsev model.
I can give you some lecture notes on this, but here are also some extracurricular reading suggestions:

Statistical methods for dealing with multiplicative noise are described very thoroghly in  van Kampen's book (on your reading list)

T
he specific method of averaging that I prefer, as well as extensions to small but finite correlation times, is described in A. A. Schekochihin & R. M. Kulsrud, Phys. Plasmas 8, 4937 (2001).

Here is a (very incomplete) list of papers where Kazantsev's model of small-scale dynamo is studied in many different ways:
A. P. Kazantsev, Soviet Phys. --- JETP 26, 1031 (1968)
See references and review of subsequent work in 1980s in Chapter 9 of the Zeldovich et al. book (on your reading list) --- they do everything in x space.
R. M. Kulsrud & S. W. Anderson, Astrophys. J. 396, 606 (1992) --- a very thorough study of the spectra of magnetic energy
A. Gruzinov, S. Cowley & R. Sudan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 4342 (1996)
--- calculation of the spectrum in a different way
I. Rogachevskii & N. Kleeorin, Phys. Rev. E 56, 417 (1997) --- the case of Pm<<1
K. Subramanian, astro-ph/9708216 --- a WKB solution in x space
M. Chertkov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4065 (1999) --- direct generalisation of the linear-velocity calculation (as in my lectures) to the case of random FTLEs, higher moments of B
S. A. Boldyrev & A. A. Schekochihin, Phys. Rev. E 62, 545 (2000) --- a systematic development in terms of metric tensors
A. A. Schekochihin, S. A. Boldyrev & R. M. Kulsrud, Astrophys. J. 567, 828 (2002) --- another calculation both in k and x spaces
D. Vincenzi, J. Stat. Phys. 106, 1073 (2002) --- a numerical solution, a range of Pm (from small to large) modelled
N. Kleeorin, I. Rogachevskii & D. Sokoloff, Phys. Rev. E 65, 036303 (2002) --- x-space calculation with small but finite correlation time
A. Schekochihin et al., Phys. Rev. E 65, 016305 (2002) ---  calculation of field structure in terms of field-line curvature etc.
S. Nazarenko, R. J. West & O. Zaboronski, Phys. Rev. E 68, 026311 (2003) --- higher moments in k space
R. J. West et al., Astron. Astrophys. 414, 807 (2004) --- more of the above
S. A. Boldyrev & F. Cattaneo, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 144501 (2004) --- the case of Pm<<1 revisited
H. Arponen & P. Horvai, nlin.CD/0610023 --- analytical extension of the Vincenzi paper

Here are some recent theoretical papers on the saturation of small-scale dynamo (representing several different views of what happens)
K. Subramanian, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2957 (1999)
E. Kim, Phys. Lett. A 259, 232 (1999)
E. Kim, Phys. Plasmas 7, 1746 (2000)
S. V. Nazarenko, G. E. Falkovich, & Galtier, S., Phys. Rev. E 63, 016408 (2001)
A. A. Schekochihin et al., New J. Phys. 4, 84 (2002)
K. Subramanian, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 245003 (2003)
A. A. Schekochihin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 084504 (2004)
A. A. Schekochihin et al., Astrophys. J. 612, 276 (2004)


Example Class IITuesday 28.11.05 @ 14:30-16:30 in MR4

Once in a lifetime opportunity: Part III essay on Gyrokinetics (pdf)

If you are interested in exploring other Part III essay or future Ph. D. research opportunities in plasma physics (both astrophysical and fusion-oriented), turbulence, MHD turbulence, dynamo theory etc., you are welcome to come to talk to me about that.