Emergent Mesoscale Phenomena in Magnetized Accretion Disc Turbulence

Abstract

We study how the structure and variability of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in accretion discs converge with domain size. Our results are based on a series of vertically stratified local simulations, computed using the Athena code, that have fixed spatial resolution, but varying radial and azimuthal extent (from \Delta R = 0.5H to 16H, where H is the vertical scale height). We show that elementary local diagnostics of the turbulence, including the Shakura-Sunyaev {\alpha} parameter, the ratio of Maxwell stress to magnetic energy, and the ratio of magnetic to fluid stresses, converge to within the precision of our measurements for spatial domains of radial size Lx \geq 2H. We obtain {\alpha} = 0.02-0.03, consistent with recent results. Very small domains (Lx = 0.5H) return anomalous results, independent of spatial resolution. The convergence with domain size is only valid for a limited set of diagnostics: larger spatial domains admit the emergence of dynamically important mesoscale structures. In our largest simulations, the Maxwell stress shows a significant large scale non-local component, while the density develops long-lived axisymmetric perturbations (zonal flows) at the 20% level. Most strikingly, the variability of the disc in fixed-sized patches decreases strongly as the simulation volume increases. We find generally good agreement between our largest local simulations and global simulations with comparable spatial resolution. There is no direct evidence that the presence of curvature terms or radial gradients in global calculations materially affect the turbulence, except to perhaps introduce an outer radial scale for mesoscale structures. The demonstrated importance of mean magnetic fields, seen in both large local and global simulations implies that the growth and saturation of these fields is likely of critical importance for the evolution of accretion discs. (abridged)Comment: 18 pages, 20 figures, accepted to MNRA