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E.T. Vishniac (Johns Hopkins University), J. Cho, A. Lazarian (University of Wisconsin)
We consider the turbulent cascade in a strongly magnetized, partially ionized medium. The cascade naturally divides into four regimes. On the largest scales we find an undamped turbulent cascade. On smaller scales the neutral component provides effective damping for turbulent motions, and the kinetic energy spectrum is a steeply declining power law. However, the magnetic power spectrum rises slowly with increasing wavenumber, and transfers energy to smaller scales with small dissipative losses. On still smaller scales the ions and neutrals decouple, and the magnetic and kinetic energies both decline with decreasing scale, but still with small dissipative losses. On the smallest scales the magnetic field becomes unstable, and releases its energy into a strong turbulent cascade, involving only the ionized component, in localized bursts. We discuss the implications of this for interstellar scintillation and for stochastic reconnection in the ISM.