Dynamics of fast magnetosonic wave turbulence
Abstract
Fast magnetosonic waves are among the fundamental oscillation modes of astrophysical plasmas. To study their dynamics, we carry out numerical simulations of the wave turbulence kinetic equation, which describes the evolution of the energy spectrum of a set of weakly nonlinear fast magnetosonic waves. This kinetic equation, which involves three-wave interactions, has recently been derived from compressible magnetohydrodynamics in the low-β limit (Galtier 2023). It has an exact stationary solution, the Kolmogorov-Zakharov spectrum, corresponding to a direct energy cascade. Here we perform free decay simulations of the kinetic equation for which we propose a Kolmogorov-type phenomenology to explain the temporal decay laws of energy and integral length scale. In the forced simulations, we show that the cascade is in fact composed of a mixture of a forward cascade for counter-propagating waves, and a backward cascade for co-propagating waves, with the former being stronger than the latter. The Kolmogorov-Zakharov energy spectrum in k−3/2 is found in the radial direction with an anisotropy due to the amplitude that depends on the angle relative to the strong mean magnetic field. We give the analytical expression of the Kolmogorov-Zakharov constant, which is numerically verified in the high Reynolds number limit. Our study provides a theoretical explanation for certain observations in the solar wind plasma (Zhao et al. 2022), where a regime of weak turbulence has been identified for fast magnetosonic waves, alongside a critical balance regime for strong Alfvén wave turbulence.
Related
- Sub-sonic compressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence I. Alfvénic and fast-magnetosonic injection, amplitude dependence, and compressibility effects
- Effects of Coulomb Collisions on the Structures of Fast Magnetosonic Shocks
- Experimental Plasma Density Profiles Determined Through Measurements of the Magnetosonic Wave Speed
- First Observation of a Polar Coronal Hole-like Fast Solar Wind Stream in the Sub-Alfvénic Solar Corona: an Analysis of Turbulence Properties
- Wave-optics numerical simulation of atmospheric turbulence in 10,000-km-scale satellite–ground optical links with spatially adaptive phase screens
BibTeX
@misc{muller2026dynamics,
title = {{Dynamics of fast magnetosonic wave turbulence}},
author = {Nicolás Pablo Müller and Sébastien Galtier},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.22710},
eprint = {2605.22710},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.22710},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Dynamics of fast magnetosonic wave turbulence
AU - Nicolás Pablo Müller
AU - Sébastien Galtier
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.22710
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.22710
AB - Fast magnetosonic waves are among the fundamental oscillation modes of astrophysical plasmas. To study their dynamics, we carry out numerical simulations of the wave turbulence kinetic equation, which describes the evolution of the energy spectrum of a set of weakly nonlinear fast magnetosonic waves. This kinetic equation, which involves three-wave interactions, has recently been derived from compressible magnetohydrodynamics in the low-β limit (Galtier 2023). It has an exact stationary solution, the Kolmogorov-Zakharov spectrum, corresponding to a direct energy cascade. Here we perform free decay simulations of the kinetic equation for which we propose a Kolmogorov-type phenomenology to explain the temporal decay laws of energy and integral length scale. In the forced simulations, we show that the cascade is in fact composed of a mixture of a forward cascade for counter-propagating waves, and a backward cascade for co-propagating waves, with the former being stronger than the latter. The Kolmogorov-Zakharov energy spectrum in k^−3/2 is found in the radial direction with an anisotropy due to the amplitude that depends on the angle relative to the strong mean magnetic field. We give the analytical expression of the Kolmogorov-Zakharov constant, which is numerically verified in the high Reynolds number limit. Our study provides a theoretical explanation for certain observations in the solar wind plasma (Zhao et al. 2022), where a regime of weak turbulence has been identified for fast magnetosonic waves, alongside a critical balance regime for strong Alfvén wave turbulence.
ER -