Anisotropy of MHD turbulence has been studied extensively for many years,
most prominently by measurements in the solar wind and high resolution
simulations. The spectrum parallel to the local magnetic field was observed to
be steeper than perpendicular spectrum, typically k−2, consistent with the
widely accepted Goldreich-Sridhar (1995) model. In this Letter I looked deeper
into the nature of the relation between parallel and perpendicular spectra and
argue that this k−2 scaling has the same origin as the ω−2
scaling of Lagrangian frequency spectrum in strong hydrodynamic turbulence.
This follows from the fact that Alfv\'en waves propagate along magnetic field
lines. It is now became clear that the observed anisotropy can be argued
without invocation of the "critical balance" argument and is more robust that
was previously thought. The relation between parallel (Lagrangian) and
perpendicular (Eulerian) spectra is inevitable consequence of strong turbulence
of Alfven waves, rather than a conjecture based on the uncertainty relation. I
tested this using high-resolution simulations of MHD turbulence, in particular
I verified that the cutoff of the parallel spectrum scales as Kolmogorov
timescale, not lengthscale.Comment: ApJ Letters, accepte
