Nonlinear MHD Waves and Turbulence (Proceedings of the Workshop Nice, France, 1–4.12.98) Lecture Notes in Physics 536
Thierry Passot, Pierre-Louis SulemThe workshop "Nonhnear MHD Waves and Turbulence" was held at the Observatoire de Nice, December 1-4, 1998 and brought together an international group of experts in plasma physics, fluid dynamics and applied mathematics. The aim of the meeting was to survey the current knowledge on two main topics: (i) propagation of plasma waves (like Alfven, whistler or ion-acoustic waves), their instabilities and the development of a nonlinear dynamics lea ding to solitonic structures, wave collapse or weak turbulence; (ii) turbulence in magnetohydrodynamic flows and its reduced description in the presence of a strong ambient magnetic field. As is well known, both aspects play an important role in various geophysical or astrophysical media such as the - gnetospheres of planets, the heliosphere, the solar wind, the solar corona, the interplanetary and interstellar media, etc. This volume, which includes expanded versions of oral contributions presented at this meeting, should be of interest for a large community of researchers in space plasmas and nonlinear sciences. Special effort was made to put the new results into perspective and to provide a detailed literature review. A main motivation was the attempt to relate more closely the theoretical understanding of MHD waves and turbulence (both weak and strong) with the most recent observations in space plasmas. Some papers also bring interesting new insights into the evolution of hydrodynamic or magnetohydrodynamic structures, based on systematic asymptotic methods.