Theory of resistive pressure-gradient-driven turbulence

Abstract

Saturated resistive pressure-gradient-driven turbulence is studied analytically and with numerical calculations. Fluid viscosity and thermal diffusivity are retained in the analysis and calculations. Such dissipation guarantees the existence of a stable, high-m dissipation range, which serves as an energy sink. An accurate saturation criterion is proposed. The resulting predicted pressure diffusivity scales similarly to the mixing length estimate but is significantly larger in magnitude. The predictions of the analytic theory are in good quantitative agreement with the numerical results for fluctuation levels.