PF-02-0021

MRI turbulence in local boxes --Cartesian box vs. Cylindrical box--

Takeru Ken Suzuki

We study the basic physical properties of MHD turbulence driven by magnetorotational instability in both Cartesian and cylindrical local shearing boxes and inspect the effects of the geometrical properties on the excited turbulence. Although both cases show similar time averaged properties on the saturated magnetic field and Maxwell stress, the cylindrical simulation exhibits a considerably higher-level of intermittency than the Cartesian one. We discuss the radial dependence of epicyclic frequency, which can be explicitly considered only in the cylindrical setup, as a possible cause of the strong intermittency.