Turbulence Astrophysics

Turbulence is the rule rather than the exception in the astronomer's sky. Nevertheless, the phenomenon `turbulence' is not well understood so far, despite of the fact that the relevant equations are known for more than 150 years.
Leonardo da Vinci was highly impressed by the complexity of turbulent torrents, and Albert Einstein yet realized turbulence as the unresolved problem of classical physics.
Still in 1932, shortly before his death, Horace Lamb, the Grand Old Man of hydrodynamics, said `when I die and go to heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics and the other is turbulence in fluids. And about the former, I am really rather optimistic'.

Nowadays experimenters and theoreticians in chaos research realize step by step what turbulence really is.
Astrophysics profits from the progress. Many of its open questions deal with turbulence. Whether in the Sun, in accretion disks or somewhere else, the gas flow is characterized by high Reynolds numbers. Magnetic fields make it more complicate but are indispensable for the formation of turbulent structures.
Anyway, it is the (mostly magnetohydrodynamically driven) turbulence, which under the joint action of gravity and rotation leads to remarkable structures, on small as well as on large scales, as the following compilation of our research topics demonstrates.

A lot of so far unexplained phenomena have also to do with turbulence and magnetic fields. Turbulence astrophysics is a highly interdisciplinary branch of physics. Modern chaos research, heuristic analytic theory and astrophysical observations are combined. It lives on a symbiosis of theory and observation - and it includes nearly all cosmic objects from Earth to the extragalactic nebula.

	Magnetohydrodynamics			Group			Papers			AIP