New turbulence models for magnetohydrodynamics

What is it about?

This work develops a new type of turbulence model for incompressible magnetohydrodynamics. Turbulence models are numerical tools that allows scientists and engineers to simulate natural phenomena that involve turbulence. There is no general consensus on the best turbulence model. In this work, we develop, test, and propose a new, promising approach to turbulence modeling in the field of incompressible magnetohydrodynamics.

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Why is it important?

This work represents a departure from the classical filter-based large eddy simulation approach in magnetohydrodynamics. This paper introduces scale separation via variational projections. Such an approach was first introduced for fluid dynamics in the late 1990s but is still in its infancy in magnetohydodynamics. The approach taken in the paper provides several numerical advantages as well as the possibility to capture essential MHD physics that often eludes classical approaches.