Project B2

Projectleader

Prof. Dr. Rainer Grauer
Institute for Theoretical Physics I
Ruhr-University Bochum

Title

Lagrangian and Eulerian MHD turbulence and beyond

Summary

Although enormous progress has been achieved in understanding homogeneous isotropic La-
grangian and Eulerian fluid and plasma turbulence, the application to turbulence in bounded
geometries and to the dynamics on kinetic scales is still in its infancy. We will address turbulence
in bounded geometries motivated by the VKS and Madison dynamo experiment. The techniques
on Lagrangian turbulence developed in the first phase of the FOR 1048 will be applied to gain a
better understanding of the different regimes of dynamo activity (linear, nonlinear, saturated).
To achieve this goal, fluid and magnetic boundary conditions will be implemented using the
penalty method in the spectral simulation framework LaTu.
Since in collisionless plasmas the dissipation mechanism are essentially kinetic, Vlasov simula-
tions on a cluster of graphics cards will be performed to understand alignment properties of
magnetic and velocity fluctuations on kinetic scales. In addition, multiscale-multiphysics sim-
ulations will be developed were fluid (large scales) and kinetic (small scales) simulations are
coupled in a consistent way.