Self-Organized Criticality and Intermittent Turbulence in an MHD Current Sheet with a Threshold Instability

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We report numerical evidence of a self-organized criticality (SOC) and intermittent turbulence (IT) symbiosis in a resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) current sheet model that includes a local hysteretic switch to capture plasma physical processes outside of MHD that 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.
4 pages, 4 figures; corrected typos, updated Fig.2

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Astrophysics

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http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/215131

Consulte el texto completo en el siguiente enlace:

https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701486
 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701486

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arXiv