English

Hall Magnetohydrodynamics of weakly-ionized plasma

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v2

Abstract

We show that the Hall scale in a weakly ionized plasma depends on the fractional ionization of the medium and, Hall MHD description becomes important whenever the ion-neutral collision frequency is comparable to the ion-gyration frequency, or, the ion-neutral collisional mean free path is smaller than the ion gyro-radius. Wave properties of a weakly-ionized plasma also depends on the fractional ionization and plasma Hall parameters, and whistler mode is the most dominant mode in such a medium. Thus Hall MHD description will be important in astrophysical disks, dark molecular clouds, neutron star crusts, and, solar and planetary atmosphere.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0608008,
  title  = {Hall Magnetohydrodynamics of weakly-ionized plasma},
  author = {B. P. Pandey and Mark Wardle},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0608008},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

4 page, submitted to Physical Review Letters