REMARKS ON TRANSPORT THEORIES OF INTERPLANETARY FLUCTUATIONS

The structure of approximate transport theories for the radial behavior of interplanetary fluctuations is reconsidered. The emphasis is on theories derived under the assumption of scale separation; i.e., the correlation length of the fluctuations is much less than the scale of large inhomogeneities. In these cases the zero-wavelength limit provides a first approximation to the spectral evolution equations for the radial dependence of interplanetary fluctuation spectra. The goal here is to investigate the structure of a recently presented (Zhou and Matthaeus, 1989) transport theory, in which coupling of "inward"- and "outward"-type fluctuations appears in the leading order, an effect we call "mixing." In linear theory, mixing-type couplings of inward-type and outward-type waves are formally a nonresonant effect. However, leading order mixing terms do not vanish at zero wavelength for fluctuations that vary nearly perpendicular to the local magnetic field, or when the mean magnetic field is weak. Leading order mixing terms also survive when the dispersion relation fails and there is a nonunique relationship between frequency and wave number. The former case corresponds to nearly twodimensional structures; these are included, for example, in isotropic models of turbulence. The latter instance occurs when wave-wave couplings are sufficiently strong. Thus there are a variety of situations in which leading order mixing effects are expected to be present. © 1990 by the American Geophysical Union.