Linear vs. nonlinear acceleration in plasma turbulence. I. Global versus local measures

Magnetized turbulent plasmas are generally characterized as strongly or weakly turbulent based on the average relative strengths of the linear and nonlinear terms. While this description is useful, it does not represent the full picture and can be misleading. We study the variation of linear and nonlinear accelerations in the Fourier space of a magnetohydrodynamic system with a mean magnetic field and broad selection of initial states and plasma parameters. We show that the local picture can show significant departures from what is expected from the general global picture. We find that high cross helicity systems that are traditionally believed to have relatively weaker nonlinearities, compared to low cross helicity systems, can show strong nonlinearities in parts of the Fourier space that are orthogonal to the mean magnetic field direction. In some cases, these nonlinearities can exceed in strength the level of nonlinearities recovered from low cross helicity systems