English

Study of MRI in stratified viscous plasma configuration

Plasma Physics 2017-04-26 v2 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

We analyze the morphology of the Magneto-rotational Instability (MRI) for a stratified viscous plasma disk configuration in differential rotation, taking into account the so-called corotation theorem for the background profile. In order to select the intrinsic Alfv\'enic nature of MRI, we deal with an incompressible plasma and we adopt a formulation of the local perturbation analysis based on the use of the magnetic flux function as a dynamical variable. Our study outlines, as consequence of the corotation condition, a marked asymmetry of the MRI with respect to the equatorial plane, particularly evident in a complete damping of the instability over a positive critical height on the equatorial plane. We also emphasize how such a feature is already present (although less pronounced) even in the ideal case, restoring a dependence of the MRI on the stratified morphology of the gravitational field.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1608.08849,
  title  = {Study of MRI in stratified viscous plasma configuration},
  author = {Nakia Carlevaro and Giovanni Montani and Fabrizio Renzi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.08849},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

7 pages, 4 figures