Articles | Volume 28, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-28-597-2010
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-28-597-2010
ANGEO Communicates
 | 
19 Feb 2010
ANGEO Communicates |  | 19 Feb 2010

Inertial-range spectrum of whistler turbulence

Y. Narita and S. P. Gary

Abstract. We develop a theoretical model of an inertial-range energy spectrum for homogeneous whistler turbulence. The theory is a generalization of the Iroshnikov-Kraichnan concept of the inertial-range magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. In the model the dispersion relation is used to derive scaling laws for whistler waves at highly oblique propagation with respect to the mean magnetic field. The model predicts an energy spectrum for such whistler waves with a spectral index −2.5 in the perpendicular component of the wave vector and thus provides an interpretation about recent discoveries of the second inertial-range of magnetic energy spectra at high frequencies in the solar wind.