HR: 09:00h
AN: SH11B-03    [Abstracts]
TI: High-Resolution MHD Simulation of Turbulence Properties of the Solar Wind
AU: * Goldstein, M L
EM: melvyn.l.goldstein@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 612.2, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Roberts, D A
EM: aaron.roberts@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 612.2, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AB: The simulation of the evolution of the solar wind suffers from the fundamental limitation that turbulence involves a wide range of spatial scales. Computing power continues to grow exponentially, and thus we are now in a position to improve on our previous simulations by an order of magnitude in overall resolution. We focus on a limited solid angle of solar wind plasma, and use temporally and spatially dependent boundary conditions to simulate a spiral field, shear layers, waves, quasi-two-dimensional fluctuations, and a heliospheric current sheet. Our previous lower-resolution simulations were able to demonstrate the beginnings of an inertial range cascade and showed promising results for the evolution of the Alfvénicity of the fluctuations as compared to observations. We have been unable to reproduce some properties, however, such as the variance directions of the fluctuations relative to the magnetic field direction. The paper will present an update of our progress on this and related problems.
DE: 2134 Interplanetary magnetic fields
DE: 2149 MHD waves and turbulence
DE: 2164 Solar wind plasma
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly