Axisymmetric equilibria of a gravitating plasma with incompressible flows |
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Authors: | G N Throumoulopoulos H Tasso |
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Institution: | 1. Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, EURATOM Association , D-85748, Garching, Germany;2. University of Ioannina, Association Euratom - Hellenic Republic, Physics Department, Theory Division , GR 451 10, Ioannina, Greece;3. Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, EURATOM Association , D-85748, Garching, Germany |
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Abstract: | Abstract It is found that the ideal magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium of an axisymmetric gravitating magnetically confined plasma with incompressible flows is governed by a second-order elliptic differential equation for the poloidal magnetic flux function containing five flux functions coupled with a Poisson equation for the gravitation potential, and an algebraic relation for the pressure. This set of equations is amenable to analytic solutions. As an application, the magnetic-dipole static axisymmetric equilibria with vanishing poloidal plasma currents derived recently by Krasheninnikov et al. (1999) are extended to plasmas with finite poloidal currents, subject to gravitating forces from a massive body (a star or black hole) and inertial forces due to incompressible sheared flows. Explicit solutions are obtained in two regimes: (a) in the low-energy regime β0 ≈ γ0 ≈ δ0 ≈ ε0 ? 1, where β0, γ0, δ0, and ε0 are related to the thermal, poloidal-current, flow and gravitating energies normalized to the poloidal-magnetic-field energy, respectively, and (b) in the high-energy regime β0 ≈ γ0 ≈ δ0 ≈ ε0 ? 1. It turns out that in the high-energy regime all four forces, pressure-gradient, toroidal-magnetic-field, inertial, and gravitating contribute equally to the formation of magnetic surfaces very extended and localized about the symmetry plane such that the resulting equilibria resemble the accretion disks in astrophysics. |
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Keywords: | Axisymmetric equilibria MHD Magnetic-dipole Energy Poloidal flow |
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