Hall instability in protostellar disks

Non-axial perturbations of a protostellar disk possessing vertical and azimuthal magnetic-field components are studied in the framework of Hall magnetohydrodynamics. The convective transport of the magnetic field by the Hall current leads to instability of fluctuations within a limited interval of wave numbers. The fundamental possibility of the existence of Hall instability in a medium that does not contain an inhomogeneous density distribution, which has not been discussed earlier, is demonstrated. The dependence of the instability increment on both the plasma parameter ?? and the degree of ionization of the protostellar material are analyzed. Possible consequences for weakly ionized astrophysical disks are discussed.