Astronomy and Astrophysics a Three Dimensional Alfvénic Pulse in a Transversely Inhomogeneous Medium

Interaction of incompressible and compress-ible MHD fluctuations on a one-dimensional plasma inho-mogeneity, transverse to the magnetic field, is considered in the three-dimensional regime. An initially incompress-ible (Alfvénic) MHD fluctuation generates, by linear coupling , compressible (magnetoacoustic) fluctuations. In the initial stage of the interaction, the efficiency of the coupling is enhanced by phase mixing of the incompressible mode. In the developed stage of phase mixing, the interaction saturates and both incompressible and compressible fluctuations approach a quasi-stationary state. The saturation levels of density fluctuations and incompressible fluctionations tend to become equal as the linear coupling strength increases. A&A manuscript no. (will be inserted by hand later) Your thesaurus codes are: missing; you have not inserted them