Damping of Alfven waves by Turbulence and its Consequences: from Cosmic-Rays Streaming to Launching Winds

A. Lazarian

Published 2016-07-06Version 1

This paper considers turbulent damping of Alfven waves in magnetized plasmas. We identify two cases of damping, one related to damping of cosmic rays streaming instability, the other related to damping of Alfven waves emitted by a macroscopic wave source, e.g. stellar atmosphere. The physical difference between the two cases is that in the former case the generated waves are emitted in respect to the local direction of magnetic field, in the latter in respect to the mean field. The scaling of damping is different in the two cases. We the regimes of turbulence ranging from subAlfvenic to superAlfvenic we obtain analytical expressions for the damping rates and define the ranges of applicability of these expressions. Describing the damping of the streaming instability, we find that for subAlfvenic turbulence the range of cosmic ray energies influenced by weak turbulence is unproportionally large compared to the range of scales that the weak turbulence is present. On the contrary, the range of cosmic ray energies affected by strong Alfvenic turbulence is rather limited. A number of astrophysical applications of the process ranging from launching of stellar and galactic winds to propagation of cosmic rays in galaxies and clusters of galaxies is considered. In particular, we discuss how to reconcile the process of turbulent damping with the observed isotropy of the Milky Way cosmic rays.