Magnetic helicity, weak solutions and relaxation of ideal MHD

Abstract

We revisit the issue of conservation of magnetic helicity and the Woltjer-Taylor relaxation theory in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in the context of weak solutions. We introduce a relaxed system for the ideal MHD system, which decouples the effects of hydrodynamic turbulence such as the appearance of a Reynolds stress term from the magnetic helicity conservation in a manner consistent with observations in plasma turbulence. As by-products we answer two open questions in the field: We show the sharpness of the L³ integrability condition for magnetic helicity conservation and provide turbulent bounded solutions for ideal MHD dissipating energy and cross helicity but with (arbitrary) constant magnetic helicity.