We evaluate a number of simple, one-point phenomenological models for the decay of energy-containing eddies in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and hydrodynamic turbulence. The MHD models include. effects of cross helicity and Alfvdnic couplings associated with a constant mean magnetic field, based on physical effects well-described in the literature. The analytic structure of three separate MHD models is discussed. The single hydrodynamic model and several MHD models are compared against results from spectral-method simulations. The hydrodynamic model phenomenology has been previously verified against experiments in wind tunnels, and certain experimentally determined parameters in the model are satisfactorily reproduced by the present simulation. This agreement supports the suitability of our numerical calculations for examining MHD turbulence, where practical difficulties make it more difficult to study physical examples. When the triple-decorrelation time and effects of spectral anisotropy are properly taken into account, particular MHD models give decay rates that remain correct to within a factor of 2 for several energy-halving times. A simple model of this type is likely to be useful in a number of applications in space physics, astrophysics, and laboratory plasma physics where the approximate effects of turbulence need to be included.

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In order to understand certain aspects of the plasma sheet dynamics, a numerical study of the nonadiabatic behavior of particles in a model field geometry is performed. The particle's magnetic moment as a function of time is calculated for various initial parameters, corresponding to various particle energies and degrees of field curvature. It is shown that the magnetic moment changes as the particle passes through the plasma sheet and that the magnitude of the change is related to the curvature of the field at the middle of the plasma sheet. The relation of the magnitude of the change in magnetic moment to the particle's pitch and phase angles as it passes through the sheet is numerically resolved. The nature of the change may be considered as a mechanism for pitch angle diffusion, and the diffusion coefficient is calculated. This scattering mechanism is significant for plasma sheet ions (1–10 keV) as well as energetic electrons (⩾100 keV).

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The diffusion coefficient associated with random walk of magnetic field lines is computed by direct calculation of a large number of field lines from a specified statistical ensemble. Two‐component magnetic field models are examined, consisting of a mixture of slab and two‐dimensional fluctuations. The scaling of the diffusion coefficient with magnetic field strength is established numerically for a wide range of relative fluctuation amplitudes ( δb/B0). The results confirm the recent nonperturbative theory of field line random walk (Phys. Rev. Lett., 75, 2136, 1995), but depart considerably from the quasilinear B0−2scaling, for models thought to be appropriate to the solar wind.