Related papers: Radiative and dynamic stability of a dilute plasma
X-ray observations of hot gas in galaxy clusters often show steeper temperature gradients across cold fronts -- contact discontinuities, driven by the differential gas motions. These sharp (a few kpc wide) surface brightness/temperature…
Ionization front instabilities have long been of interest for their suspected role in a variety of phenomena in the galaxy, from the formation of bright rims and 'elephant trunks' in nebulae to triggered star formation in molecular clouds.…
In the paradigm of magnetic acceleration of relativistic outflows, a crucial point is identifying a viable mechanism to convert the Poynting flux into the kinetic energy of the plasma, and eventually into the observed radiation. Since the…
High-resolution X-ray observations have revealed cavities and `cold fronts' with sharp edges in temperature, density, and metallicity within galaxy clusters. Their presence poses a puzzle since these features are not expected to be…
Unopposed radiative cooling in clusters of galaxies results in excessive mass deposition rates. However, the cool cores of galaxy clusters are continuously heated by thermal conduction and turbulent heat diffusion due to minor mergers or…
We show that under very general conditions, cluster plasmas threaded by weak magnetic fields are subject to very fast growing plasma instabilities driven by the anisotropy of the plasma pressure (viscous stress) with respect to the local…
The dynamics of linear perturbations in a radiatively cooling dusty plasma is considered, with the charge of both dust ($Z_d$) and plasma ($Z_p$) components being allowed to vary with their densities. It is shown that in the long-wavelength…
Recent Chandra observations of clusters of galaxies revealed the existence of a sharp ridge in the X-ray surface brightness where the temperature drops across the front. This front is called the cold front. We present the results of…
In the outskirts of the intracluster medium (ICM) in galaxy clusters, the temperature decreases with radius. Due to the weakly collisional nature of the plasma, these regions are susceptible to the magneto-thermal instability (MTI), which…
We study magnetothermal instability in the ionized plasmas including the effects of Ohmic, ambipolar and Hall diffusion. Magnetic field in the single fluid approximation does not allow transverse thermal condensations, however, non-ideal…
In weakly magnetized, dilute plasmas in which thermal conduction along magnetic field lines is important, the usual convective stability criterion is modified. Instead of depending on entropy gradients, instability occurs for small…
The hot and dilute intracluster medium (ICM) plays a central role in many key processes that shape galaxy clusters.Nevertheless, the nature of plasma turbulence and particle transport in the ICM remain poorly understood, and quantifying the…
In low-collisionality plasmas, anisotropic heat conduction due to a magnetic field leads to buoyancy instabilities for any nonzero temperature gradient. We study analogous instabilities in degenerate {\it collisional} plasmas, i.e., when…
Turbulent heating may play an important role in galaxy-cluster plasmas, but if turbulent heating is to balance radiative cooling in a quasi-steady state, some mechanism must set the turbulent velocity to the required value. This paper…
In a recent one-dimensional numerical fluid simulation study [Saxena et al., Phys. Plasmas 13,032309 (2006)], it was found that an instability is associated with a special class of one-dimensional nonlinear solutions for modulated light…
We use the machinery usually employed for studying the onset of Rayleigh--B\'enard convection in hydro- and magnetohydro-dynamic settings to address the onset of convection induced by the magnetothermal instability and the…
The role played by magnetic fields in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters is complex. The weakly collisional nature of the ICM leads to thermal conduction that is channelled along field lines. This anisotropic heat conduction…
We investigate thermal instability in an electron-ion magnetized plasma relevant to galaxy clusters, solar corona, and other two-component astrophysical objects. We apply the multicomponent plasma approach when the dynamics of all the…
In this work linear stability analysis of a four-fluid optically thin plasma consisting of electrons, ions, neutral atoms, and charged dust particles is performed with respect to the radiation-condensation (RC) instability. The energy…
The assumption of a spatially uniform helium distribution in the intracluster medium can lead to biases in the estimates of key cluster parameters if composition gradients are present. The helium concentration profile in galaxy clusters is…