Astronomy Journal Club

We consider Alfvenic MHD turbulence which is imbalanced, i.e. when waves propagating in one direction along magnetic field have higher amplitudes than counter-propagating waves. Contrary to the straightforward interpretation of the Goldreich-Sridhar critical balance, the anisotropy of the strong component is smaller than the anisotropy of the weak component. I will explain why this actually makes sense and how you replace critical balance to make a consistent theory. I will also show the results of direct numerical simulations of imbalanced turbulence.