Scaling and anisotropy in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in a strong mean magnetic field

We present an analysis of the anisotropic spectral energy distribution in incompressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence permeated by a strong mean magnetic field. The turbulent flow is generated by high-resolution pseudospectral direct numerical simulations with large-scale isotropic forcing. Examining the radial energy distribution for various angles θ with respect to B0 reveals a specific structure which remains hidden when not taking axial symmetry with respect to B0 into account. For each direction, starting at the forced large scales, the spectrum first exhibits an amplitude drop around a wave number k0 which marks the start of a scaling range and goes on up to a dissipative wave number k(d)(θ). The three-dimensional spectrum for k≥k0 is described by a single θ-independent functional form F(k/k(d)), with the scaling law being the same in every direction. The previous properties still hold when increasing the mean field from B0=5 up to B0=10b(rms), as well as when passing from resistive to ideal flows. We conjecture that at fixed B0 the direction-independent scaling regime is reached when increasing the Reynolds number above a threshold which raises with increasing B0. Below that threshold critically balanced turbulence is expected.