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arxiv astro-ph/0008125 v1 pith:FGSTRU7I submitted 2000-08-08 astro-ph

The distribution of shock waves in driven supersonic turbulence

classification astro-ph
keywords shockshocksturbulencedistributionwavesdrivennumbersupersonic
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Supersonic turbulence generates distributions of shock waves. Here, we analyse the shock waves in three-dimensional numerical simulations of uniformly driven supersonic turbulence, with and without magnetohydrodynamics and self-gravity. We can identify the nature of the turbulence by measuring the distribution of the shock strengths. We find that uniformly driven turbulence possesses a power law distribution of fast shocks with the number of shocks inversely proportional to the square root of the shock jump speed. A tail of high speed shocks steeper than Gaussian results from the random superposition of driving waves which decay rapidly. The energy is dissipated by a small range of fast shocks. These results contrast with the exponential distribution and slow shock dissipation associated with decaying turbulence. A strong magnetic field enhances the shock number transverse to the field direction at the expense of parallel shocks. A simulation with self-gravity demonstrates the development of a number of highly dissipative accretion shocks. Finally, we examine the dynamics to demonstrate how the power-law behaviour arises.

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  1. The dynamical origin of the magnetic field distributions in compressible turbulence

    astro-ph.GA 2026-07 conditional novelty 7.0

    Power-law tails in turbulent magnetic field PDFs arise from intermittent Poisson-distributed shocks convolved with a lognormal core, with tail asymmetry determined by the ratio of fast to slow MHD shocks.