Related papers: Linear Thermal Instability and Fluctuations in Mol…
(Abridged) The formation of molecular clouds (MCs) from the diffuse interstellar gas appears to be a necessary step for star formation, as young stars invariably occur within them. However, the mechanisms controlling the formation of MCs…
The occurrence of the modulational instability (MI) in transverse dust lattice waves propagating in a one-dimensional dusty plasma crystal is investigated. The amplitude modulation mechanism, which is related to the intrinsic nonlinearity…
We perform numerical simulations of nonlinear MHD waves in a gravitationally stratified molecular cloud that is bounded by a hot and tenuous external medium. We study the relation between the strength of the turbulence and various global…
The problem of the stability of a nonlinear thermomagnetic wave with respect to small thermal and electromagnetic perturbations in hard superconductors was studied. It is shown that spatially bounded solutions may correspond only to the…
A strong case has been made that radio waves from sources within about half a degree of the Galactic Center undergo extreme diffractive scattering. However, problems arise when standard (``Kolmogorov'') models of electron density…
Thermal instability (TI) is a trigger mechanism, which can explain formation of condensations through some regions of the interstellar clouds. Our goal here is to investigate some conditions for occurrence of TI and formation of…
The reliability of Langmuir probe measurements for plasma-turbulence investigations is studied on GEMR gyro-fluid simulations and compared with results from conditionally sampled I-V characteristics as well as self-emitting probe…
The ambipolar-diffusion theory of star formation predicts the formation of fragments in molecular clouds with mass-to-flux ratios greater than that of the parent-cloud envelope. By contrast, scenarios of turbulence-induced fragmentation do…
How can a collection of motile cells, each generating contractile nematic stresses in isolation, become an extensile nematic at the tissue-level? Understanding this seemingly contradictory experimental observation, which occurs irrespective…
The relationship between a decaying strong turbulence and the mirror instability in a slowly expanding plasma is investigated using two-dimensional hybrid expanding box simulations. We impose an initial ambient magnetic field perpendicular…
The effect of aerosol emissions on the properties and distribution of clouds is a large source of uncertainty in predictions of weather and climate. These aerosol-cloud interactions depend critically on the ability of aerosol particles to…
The fluctuation-dissipation theorem requires the presence of thermal noise in viscous fluids. The time and length scales of heavy ion collisions are small enough so that the thermal noise can have a measurable effect on observables. Thermal…
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 analyze the linear stability of a dilute, hot plasma, taking into account the effects of stratification and anisotropic thermal conduction. The work is motivated by attempts to understand the dynamics of the intracluster medium in galaxy…
In the standard picture of fully-developed turbulence, highly intermittent hydrodynamic fields are nonlinearly coupled across scales, where local energy cascades from large scales into dissipative vortices and large density gradients.…
In a recent paper, Elmegreen (2000) has made a cogent case, from an observational point of view, that the lifetimes of molecular clouds are comparable to their dynamical timescales. If so, this has important implications for the mechanisms…
Fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature are being studied with ever increasing precision. Two competing types of theories might describe the origins of these fluctuations: ``inflation'' and ``defects''. Here we…
Radiation transport plays important roles in stellar atmospheres, but the effects of turbulence are being obscured by other effects such as stratification. Using radiative hydrodynamic simulations of forced turbulence, we determine the…
Turbulent thermal diffusion is a combined effect of the temperature stratified turbulence and inertia of small particles. It causes the appearance of a non-diffusive turbulent flux of particles in the direction of the turbulent heat flux.…
We study the effects on cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies of spatial fluctuations of the fine-structure parameter between causally disconnected regions of the Universe at the time of recombination.…