We investigate using direct numerical simulations with grids up to ${1536}^3$ points, the rate at which small scales develop in a decaying three-dimensional MHD flow both for deterministic and random initial conditions. Parallel current and vorticity sheets form at the same spatial locations, and further destabilize and fold or roll up after an initial exponential phase. At high Reynolds numbers, a self-similar evolution of the current and vorticity maxima is found, in which they grow as a cubic power of time; the flow then reaches a finite dissipation rate independent of the Reynolds number.

• Received 28 July 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.244503