Standard and helical magnetorotational instability: How singularities create paradoxal phenomena in MHD
Abstract
The magnetorotational instability (MRI) triggers turbulence and enables outward transport of angular momentum in hydrodynamically stable rotating shear flows, e.g., in accretion disks. What laws of differential rotation are susceptible to the destabilization by axial, azimuthal, or helical magnetic field? The answer to this question, which is vital for astrophysical and experimental applications, inevitably leads to the study of spectral and geometrical singularities on the instability threshold. The singularities provide a connection between seemingly discontinuous stability criteria and thus explain several paradoxes in the theory of MRI that were poorly understood since the 1950s.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1109.1940,
title = {Standard and helical magnetorotational instability: How singularities create paradoxal phenomena in MHD},
author = {Oleg N. Kirillov and Frank Stefani},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1109.1940},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
25 pages, 10 figures. A tutorial paper. Invited talk at SPT 2011, Symmetry and Perturbation Theory, 5 - 12 June 2011, Otranto near Lecce (Italy)