Dynamical instability of laminar axisymmetric flows of ideal incompressible fluid

The instability of axisymmetric flows of ideal incompressible fluid with respect to infinitesimal perturbations with the nonconservation of angular momentum is investigated by numerically integrating the differential equations of hydrodynamics. The problem has been solved for two types of rotation profiles of an unperturbed flow: with zero and nonzero pressure gradients at the flow boundaries. Both rigid and free boundary conditions have been considered. The stability of axisymmetric flows with free boundaries is of great importance in disk accretion problems. Our calculations have revealed a crucial role of the flow pattern near the boundaries in the instability of the entire main flow. When the pressure gradient at the boundaries is zero, there is such a limiting scale of perturbations in azimuthal coordinate that longer-wavelength perturbations grow, while growing shorter-wavelength perturbations do not exit. In addition, for a fixed radial flow extent, there exists a nonzero minimum amplitude of the deviation of the angular velocity from the Keplerian one at which the instability vanishes. For a nonzero pressure gradient at the boundaries, the flow is unstable with respect to perturbations of any scale and at any small deviation of the angular velocity from the Keplerian one.     

The secular stability of a gravitating stellar ring

The problem of secular stability of a homogeneous and cold differentially rotating gravitating stellar ring in an external gravitational field is considered. For the analysis of stability we use the method of variation of the system energy in the frames of the local hydrodynamical approximation. We show that the considered stellar system is always characterized by secular instability for all non–zero values of the density. This conclusion is valid also in the case of solid–body rotation of the ring.     

On thermosolutal-convective instability in a stellar atmosphere

Thermosolutal-convective instability of a stellar atmosphere is considered. The criteria for monotonic instability are derived. The effects of a variable horizontal magnetic field and the simultaneous presence of a uniform rotation and a uniform horizontal magnetic field have been considered on the thermosolutal-convective instability. The criteria derived for monotonic instability are found to hold good in the presence of a variable horizontal magnetic field as well as in the presence of a uniform rotation and a uniform horizontal magnetic field.     

Numerical Simulations of Self-Gravitating Magnetized Disks

We present the first global simulations of self-gravitating magnetized tori. The simulations are performed with Zeus-2D and GLOBAL. We find the magnetorotational instability (MRI) to behave similarly in a self-gravitating environment as in previous simulations of non self-gravitating systems: enhancement of turbulent angular momentum transport follows the linear phase. The torus quickly develops a two component structure composed of an inner thick disk in Keplerian rotation and an outer massive disk. We compare this result with zero mass global simulations in 2D, and also present preliminary results of 3D simulations.     

Thermosolutal-convective instability of a composite plasma in a stellar atmosphere including the effects of variable magnetic field and rotation

Thermosolutal-convective instability of a composite plasma in a stellar atmosphere is considered. The effect of a variable horizontal magnetic field and the simultaneous effect of a uniform rotation and a variable horizontal magnetic field have been considered on the thermosolutal-convective instability. We have derived the sufficient conditions for the existence of monotonic instability. It is found that the criteria for monotonic instability hold good in the presence of a variable horizontal magnetic field as well as in the presence of a uniform rotation and a variable horizontal magnetic field.     

Baroclinic instability in differentially rotating stars

A linear analysis of baroclinic instability in a stellar radiation zone with radial differential rotation is performed. The instability sets in at a very small rotation inhomogeneity, ΔΩ ～ 10^?3Ω. There are two families of unstable disturbances corresponding to Rossby waves and internal gravity waves. The instability is dynamical: its growth time is several thousand rotation periods but is short compared to the stellar evolution time. A decrease in thermal conductivity amplifies the instability. Unstable disturbances possess kinetic helicity. Magnetic field generation by the turbulence resulting from the instability is possible.     

Dynamical aspects of the venus 4-day circulation

Evidence for the 4-day retrograde zonal circulation of the upper Venus atmosphere is summarized. The ‘moving flame’ phenomenon, convective instability to a mean shear and tidal forcing are discussed as possible dynamical explanations for the 4-day rotation. Tidal forcing seems feasible only if momentum diffusion is molecular in nature. Convective instability to a mean shear, although it can account for the magnitude of the 4-day circulation, must be supplemented by another mechanism, the ‘moving flame’ say, to explain the direction of the zonal motion. However, numerical computations indicate that the ‘moving flame’ by itself can account for both the magnitude and direction of the 4-day rotation. It appears that the stable stratification above altitudes of about 60 km is an essential factor in the ‘moving flame’ mechanism for generating the retrograde atmospheric rotation.     

Eddy viscosity and turbulent Schmidt number by kink-type instabilities of toroidal magnetic fields

The potential of the non-axisymmetric magnetic instability to transport angular momentum and to mix chemicals is probed considering the stability of a nearly uniform toroidal field between conducting cylinders with different rotation rates. The fluid between the cylinders is assumed as incompressible and to be of uniform density. With a linear theory, the neutral-stability maps for   m = 1  are computed. Rigid rotation must be sub-Alfvénic to allow instability, while for differential rotation also an unstable domain with faster rotation exists [azimuthal magnetorotational instability (AMRI)]. The rotational quenching of the magnetic instability is strongest for magnetic Prandtl number of the order of unity.
The effective angular momentum transport by the instability is directed outwards for subrotation. The resulting magnetic-induced eddy viscosity exceeds the microscopic values by factors of 10–100. This is only true for AMRI; in the opposite case of Tayler instability, the viscosity results are very small.
The same instability also quenches concentration gradients of chemicals by dynamic fluctuations. The corresponding diffusion coefficient always remains smaller than the magnetic-generated eddy viscosity. A Schmidt number of the order of 30 is found as the ratio of the effective viscosity and the diffusion coefficient. For not too strong magnetic fields in the radiation zone of young solar-type stars, the magnetic instability transports much more angular momentum than that it mixes chemicals.     

Magnetogravitational instability of an infinite homogeneous rotating plasma through a porous medium with finite electrical and thermal conductivities

The gravitational instability of an infinite homogenous rotating plasma through a porous medium in the presence of a uniform magnetic field with finite electrical and thermal conductivities has been studied. With the help of relevant linearized perturbation equations of the problem, a general dispersion relation is obtained, which is further reduced for the special cases of rotation, parallel and perpendicular to the megnetic field acting in the vertical direction. Longitudinal and transverse modes of propagation are discussed separately. It is found that the joint effect of various parameters is simply to modify the Jeans's condition of instability. The effect of finite electrical conductivity is to remove the effect of magnetic field where as the effect of thermal conductivity is to replace the adiabatic velocity of sound by the isothermal one. Rotation has its effect only along the magnetic field in the transverse mode of propagation for an inviscid plasma, thereby stabilizing the system. Porosity reduces the effect of both, the magnetic field and the rotation, in the transverse mode of propagation in both the cases of rotation. The effect of viscosity is to remove the rotational effects parallel to the magnetic field in the transverse mode of propagation.     

Global m= 1 instabilities and lopsidedness in disc galaxies

Lopsidedness is common in spiral galaxies. Often, there is no obvious external cause, such as an interaction with a nearby galaxy, for such features. Alternatively, the lopsidedness may have an internal cause, such as a dynamical instability. In order to explore this idea, we have developed a computer code that searches for self-consistent perturbations in razor-thin disc galaxies and performed a thorough mode-analysis of a suite of dynamical models for disc galaxies embedded in an inert dark matter halo with varying amounts of rotation and radial anisotropy.
Models with two equal-mass counter-rotating discs and fully rotating models both show growing lopsided modes. For the counter-rotating models, this is the well-known counter-rotating instability, becoming weaker as the net rotation increases. The m = 1 mode of the maximally rotating models, on the other hand, becomes stronger with increasing net rotation. This rotating m = 1 mode is reminiscent of the eccentricity instability in near-Keplerian discs.
To unravel the physical origin of these two different m = 1 instabilities, we studied the individual stellar orbits in the perturbed potential and found that the presence of the perturbation gives rise to a very rich orbital behaviour. In the linear regime, both instabilities are supported by aligned loop orbits. In the non-linear regime, other orbit families exist that can help support the modes. In terms of density waves, the counter-rotating m = 1 mode is due to a purely growing Jeans-type instability. The rotating m = 1 mode, on the other hand, grows as a result of the swing amplifier working inside the resonance cavity that extends from the disc centre out to the radius where non-rotating waves are stabilized by the model's outwardly rising Q profile.     

Gravitational Instability of Cylindrical Viscoelastic Medium Permeated with Non Uniform Magnetic Field and Rotation

The self-gravitating instability of an infinitely extending axisymmetric cylinder of viscoelastic medium permeated with non uniform magnetic field and rotation is studied for both the strongly coupled plasma (SCP) and weakly coupled plasma (WCP). The non uniform magnetic field and rotation are considered to act along the axial direction of the cylinder. The normal mode method of perturbations is applied to obtain the dispersion relation. The condition for the onset of gravitational instability has been derived from the dispersion relation under both strongly and weakly coupling limits. It is found that the Jeans criterion for gravitational collapse gets modified due to the presence of shear and bulk viscosities for the SCP, however, the magnetic field and rotation whether uniform or non uniform has no effect on the Jeans criterion of an infinitely extending axisymmetric cylinder of a self-gravitating viscoelastic medium.     

Gravitational instability of a composite and rotating plasma in the presence of a variable magnetic field through a porous medium

The gravitational instability of an infinite homogeneous self-gravitating plasma through porous medium is considered to include, separately, the effects due to rotation and collisions between ionized and neutral components. The dispersion relations are obtained in both cases. It is found that the gravitational instability of a composite and rotating plasma in the presence of a variable horizontal magnetic field through porous medium is determined by the Jeans's criterion.     

Thermal-convective-instability of a stellar atmosphere in the presence of a nonlinear magnetic field

Thermal-convective-instability of a stellar atmosphere is investigated in the presences of a nonlinear magnetic field. A model proposed by Roberts (1981) in the context of neutron stars is used. The simultaneous effect of both nonlinear magnetic field and rotation is also considered. The criteria obtained for monotonic instability generalize the criterion derived by Defouw (1970) in the absence of magnetic field and rotation.     

Effect of thermal conductivity on the gravitational instability of a magnetized rotating plasma through a porous medium in the presence of suspended particles

The self-gravitational instability of an ionized, thermally-conducting, magnetized, rotating plasma flow through a porous medium has been studied in the presence of suspended particles. The ionized gas-particle medium has been considered rotating along and perpendicular to the vertical magnetic field. Propagation of the plasma waves has been studied for the longitudinal and the transverse modes for both the cases of rotation. A general dispersion relation has been derived with the help of relevant perturbation equations, using the method of normal mode analysis. The Jeans criterion determines the condition of gravitational instability in all the cases with some modifications introduced by the various parameters considered. Thermal conductivity replaces the adiabatic sonic speed by the isothermal one. Considering the longitudinal mode of propagation with perpendicular rotational axis, for an inviscid plasma with adiabatic behaviour the effect of both, the rotation and the suspended particles has been removed by the magnetic field. For the transverse mode of propagation with the axis of rotation parallel to the magnetic field, the viscosity removes the effect of both, the rotation and the suspended particles. Porosity reduces the effect of both, the rotation and the magnetic field, whereas the concentration of the suspended particles reduces the rotational effect.     

On one special case of parametric resonance in problems of celestial mechanics

We consider a periodic (in time) linear Hamiltonian system that depends on a small parameter. At a zero value of this parameter, the matrix of the system is constant, has two identical pairs of purely imaginary roots, and is not reducible to diagonal form. Therefore, the unperturbed system is unstable. We propose an algorithm for determining the boundaries of the instability regions for the system at nonzero values of the small parameter. This algorithm was used to analyze the stability of triangular libration points in the elliptical restricted three-body problem and in the stability problem in one special case of stationary rotation of a satellite relative to the center of mass.     

Latitudinal shear instability in the solar tachocline

In an attempt to explain the observed rotation profile in the solar radiative zone and the tachocline, Spiegel & Zahn proposed a model based on anisotropic turbulent angular momentum transport. Although very successful in reproducing some of the features of the solar tachocline, their model assumes without verification that the origin of the turbulence could be caused by latitudinal shear instability. This paper studies the weakly non-linear evolution of two-dimensional shear instability, in which the interaction between the global rotation profile and the Reynolds stresses can be described self-consistently. Provided that the initial rotation profile is sufficiently close to marginal stability (which is the case of the solar tachocline), the instability is shown to saturate and to relax to a marginally stable state, which differs very little from the observed rotation profile. It is therefore likely that the tachocline is in a state of marginal stability with respect to latitudinal shear instability, and shows that angular momentum transport in the tachocline is unlikely to be caused by shear-induced turbulence.     

Influence of Ohmic diffusion on the excitation and dynamics of MRI

In this paper we make an effort to understand the interaction of turbulence generated by the magnetorotational instability (MRI) with turbulence from other sources, such as supernova explosions (SNe) in galactic disks. First we perform a linear stability analysis (LSA) of non‐ideal MRI to derive the limiting value of Ohmic diffusion that is needed to inhibit the growth of the instability for different types of rotation laws. With the help of a simple analytical expression derived under first‐order smoothing approximation (FOSA), an estimate of the limiting turbulence level and hence the turbulent diffusion needed to damp the MRI is derived. Secondly, we perform numerical simulations in local cubes of isothermal nonstratified gas with external forcing of varying strength to see whether the linear result holds for more complex systems. Purely hydrodynamic calculations with forcing, rotation and shear are made for reference purposes, and as expected, non‐zero Reynolds stresses are found. In the magnetohydrodynamic calculations, therefore, the total stresses generated are a sum of the forcing and MRI contributions. To separate these contributions, we perform reference runs with MRI‐stable shear profiles (angular velocity increasing outwards), which suggest that the MRI‐generated stresses indeed become strongly suppressed as function of the forcing. The Maxwell to Reynolds stress ratio is observed to decrease by an order of magnitude as the turbulence level due to external forcing exceeds the predicted limiting value, which we interpret as a sign of MRI suppression. Finally, we apply these results to estimate the limiting radius inside of which the SN activity can suppress the MRI, arriving at a value of 14 kpc (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Gravitational instability of a rotating plasma

The gravitational instability of an infinite homogeneous self-gravitating rotating plasma in the presence of a uniform vertical magnetic field has been studied to include the FLR effects. It has been found that the Jeans' criterion of instability remains unaffected even if rotation and FLR effects are included. The effect of rotation is to decrease the Larmor radius by an amount-depending upon the wavenumber of perturbation. The particular cases of the effect of FLR and rotation on the waves propagated along and perpendicular to the magnetic field have been discussed.     

Magnetic and vertical shear instabilities in accretion discs

The stability properties of magnetized discs rotating with angular velocity Ω = Ω( s ,  z ), dependent on both the radial and the vertical coordinates s and z , are considered. Such a rotation law is adequate for many astrophysical discs (e.g., galactic and protoplanetary discs, as well as accretion discs in binaries). In general, the angular velocity depends on height, even in thin accretion discs. A linear stability analysis is performed in the Boussinesq approximation, and the dispersion relation is obtained for short-wavelength perturbations. Any dependence of Ω on z can destabilize the flow. This concerns primarily small-scale perturbations for which the stabilizing effect of buoyancy is strongly suppressed due to the energy exchange with the surrounding plasma. For a weak magnetic field, instability of discs is mainly associated with vertical shear, whilst for an intermediate magnetic field the magnetic shear instability, first considered by Chandrasekhar and Velikhov, is more efficient. This instability is caused by the radial shear which is typically much stronger than the vertical shear. Therefore the growth time for the magnetic shear instability is much shorter than for the vertical shear instability. A relatively strong magnetic field can suppress both these instabilities. The vertical shear instability could be the source of turbulence in protoplanetary discs, where the conductivity is low.     

Gravitational instability of a rotating partially-ionized plasma carrying a uniform magnetic field with hall effect

The problem of gravitational instability of an infinite homogeneous self-gravitating medium carrying a uniform magnetic field in the presence of Hall effect has been investigated to include the effect due to rotation. The dispersion relation has been obtained. It has been found that the Jeans's criterion for the instability remains unaffected even when the effect due to rotation is considered in the presence of Hall effect carrying a uniform magnetic.