Ebook: Nonlinear MHD Waves and Turbulence: Proceeding of the Workshop Held in Nice, France, 1–4 December 1998
- Genre: Physics
- Tags: Extraterrestrial Physics Space Sciences, Atoms Molecules Clusters and Plasmas, Fluids, Computational Mathematics and Numerical Analysis, Geophysics/Geodesy, Mathematical Methods in Physics
- Series: Lecture Notes in Physics 536
- Year: 1999
- Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
- City: Berlin; New York
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- djvu
The workshop "Nonhnear MHD Waves and Turbulence" was held at the - servatoire de Nice, December 1-4, 1998 and brought together an international group of experts in plasma physics, fluid dynamics and applied mathematics. The aim of the meeting was to survey the current knowledge on two main topics: (i) propagation of plasma waves (like Alfven, whistler or ion-acoustic waves), their instabilities and the development of a nonlinear dynamics lea ding to solitonic structures, wave collapse or weak turbulence; (ii) turbulence in magnetohydrodynamic flows and its reduced description in the presence of a strong ambient magnetic fleld. As is well known, both aspects play an important role in various geophysical or astrophysical media such as the - gnetospheres of planets, the heliosphere, the solar wind, the solar corona, the interplanetary and interstellar media, etc. This volume, which includes expanded versions of oral contributions pre sented at this meeting, should be of interest for a large community of resear chers in space plasmas and nonlinear sciences. Special effort was made to put the new results into perspective and to provide a detailed literature review. A main motivation was the attempt to relate more closely the theoretical un derstanding of MHD waves and turbulence (both weak and strong) with the most recent observations in space plasmas. Some papers also bring interesting new insights into the evolution of hydrodynamic or magnetohydrodynamic structures, based on systematic asymptotic methods.
This book is of interest to researchers in astrophysics and the planetary sciences. It surveys the current knowledge on the propagation of nonlinear waves and the development of a turbulent dynamics in magnetohydrodynamic flows. The authors emphasize how the theoretical understanding of MHD waves and turbulence is related to the description of media where the presence of an ambient magnetic field is known to play an essential role. These effects are important in the physics of various space plasmas such as the magnetosphere, the solar wind, the solar corona, the interplanetary and interstellar media, etc. The authors treat fundamental aspects as revealed by asymptotic analysis, numerical simulations, and observations in the solar wind.