Effective Drag in Rotating, Poorly Conducting Plasma Turbulence
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Benavides_2022_ApJ_938_92.pdf
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Published version
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818.64 KB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Benavides, Santiago J
Burns, Keaton J
Gallet, Basile
Flierl, Glenn R
Date Issued
2022
Journal
Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Citation
Benavides, Santiago J, Burns, Keaton J, Gallet, Basile and Flierl, Glenn R. 2022. "Effective Drag in Rotating, Poorly Conducting Plasma Turbulence." Astrophysical Journal, 938 (2).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Abstract
Despite the increasing sophistication of numerical models of hot Jupiter atmospheres, the large timescale separation required in simulating the wide range in electrical conductivity between the dayside and nightside has made it difficult to run fully consistent magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models. This has led to many studies that resort to drag parameterizations of MHD. In this study, we revisit the question of the Lorentz force as an effective drag by running a series of direct numerical simulations of a weakly rotating, poorly conducting flow in the presence of a misaligned, strong background magnetic field. We find that the drag parameterization fails once the timescale associated with the Lorentz force becomes shorter than the dynamical timescale in the system, beyond which the effective drag coefficient remains roughly constant, despite orders-of-magnitude variation in the Lorentz (magnetic) timescale. We offer an improvement to the drag parameterization by considering the relevant asymptotic limit of low conductivity and strong background magnetic field, known as the quasi-static MHD approximation of the Lorentz force. This approximation removes the fast timescale associated with magnetic diffusion, but retains a more complex version of the Lorentz force, which could be utilized in future numerical models of hot Jupiter atmospheric circulation.
Despite the increasing sophistication of numerical models of hot Jupiter atmospheres, the large timescale separation required in simulating the wide range in electrical conductivity between the dayside and nightside has made it difficult to run fully consistent magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models. This has led to many studies that resort to drag parameterizations of MHD. In this study, we revisit the question of the Lorentz force as an effective drag by running a series of direct numerical simulations of a weakly rotating, poorly conducting flow in the presence of a misaligned, strong background magnetic field. We find that the drag parameterization fails once the timescale associated with the Lorentz force becomes shorter than the dynamical timescale in the system, beyond which the effective drag coefficient remains roughly constant, despite orders-of-magnitude variation in the Lorentz (magnetic) timescale. We offer an improvement to the drag parameterization by considering the relevant asymptotic limit of low conductivity and strong background magnetic field, known as the quasi-static MHD approximation of the Lorentz force. This approximation removes the fast timescale associated with magnetic diffusion, but retains a more complex version of the Lorentz force, which could be utilized in future numerical models of hot Jupiter atmospheric circulation.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/AC9137
