Small-scale kinematic dynamo and non-dynamo in inertial-range turbulence

We investigate the Lagrangian mechanism of the kinematic `fluctuation' magnetic dynamo in a turbulent plasma flow at small magnetic Prandtl numbers. The combined effect of turbulent advection and plasma resistivity is to carry infinitely many field lines to each space point, with the resultant magnetic field at that point given by the average over all the individual line vectors. As a consequence of the roughness of the advecting velocity, this remains true even in the limit of zero resistivity. We show that the presence of the dynamo effect requires sufficient angular correlation of the passive line vectors that arrive simultaneously at the same space point. We illustrate this in detail for the Kazantsev-Kraichnan model of the kinematic dynamo with a Gaussian advecting velocity that is spatially rough and white noise in time. In the regime where dynamo action fails, we also obtain the precise rate of decay of the magnetic energy. These exact results for the model are obtained by a generalization of the `slow-mode expansion' of Bernard, Gawedzki and Kupiainen to non-Hermitian evolution. Much of our analysis applies also to magnetohydrodynamic turbulence.