Kelvin-Helmholtz versus Hall Magneto-shear instability in astrophysical flows
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
2014-05-27 v1 Plasma Physics
Abstract
We study the stability of shear flows in a fully ionized plasma. Kelvin-Helmholtz is a well known, macroscopic and ideal shear-driven instability. In sufficiently low density plasmas, also the microscopic Hall magneto-shear instability can take place. We performed three-dimensional simulations of the Hall-MHD equations where these two instabilities are present, and carried out a comparative study. We find that when the shear flow is so intense that its vorticity surpasses the ion-cyclotron frequency of the plasma, the Hall magneto-shear instability is not only non-negligible, but it actually displays growth rates larger than those of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1405.6220,
title = {Kelvin-Helmholtz versus Hall Magneto-shear instability in astrophysical flows},
author = {Daniel O. Gomez and Cecilia Bejarano and Pablo D. Mininni},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.6220},
year = {2014}
}