Research on turbulence in plasma

Abstract

The plasma turbulence research program at William and Mary is discussed. The search has been less for phenomena to explain than for nontrivial magnetohydrodynamic processes in the fully turbulent domain that can be understood. Two examples are used to illustrate this: (1) development of anisotropy in the presence of a strong do magnetic field; and (2) the decay of an MHD turbulent field to a dynamically aligned state with velocity field and magnetic fields parallel or antiparallel.