Kelvin-Helmholtz Instabilities

Interplay between Kelvin-Helmholtz and urrent-driven instabilities in jets

Rapid large-scale magnetic-field dissipation in a collisionless current sheet via coupling between Kelvin-Helmholtz and lower-hybrid drift instabilities.

Rapid large-scale magnetic-field dissipation is observed in a full kinetic simulation of cross-field current instabilities in a current sheet even when the thickness of the current sheet is at ion scale. The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability caused by the velocity shear between the current-carrying ions and the cold background ions excites the lower-hybrid drift instability at the edges of the undul...

Low-frequency turbulence in a linear magnetized plasma.

Plasma turbulence in a linear device is explored for the first time with three-dimensional global two-fluid simulations, focusing on the plasma parameters of the Large Plasma Device. Three instabilities are present in the simulations: the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, a sheath-driven instability, and a resistive drift wave instability. The Kelvin-Helmholtz mode is shown to dominate the transpor...

Physical Properties of Parasitic Modes in Non-ideal Mhd Accretion Disks

We investigate the stability of incompressible, exact, non-ideal magnetorotational (MRI) modes against parasitic instabilities for a broad range of dissipation coefficients, relevant to astrophysical and laboratory environments. This allows us to uncover the asymptotic behavior of the fastest parasites in terms of the Elsasser number, Λη, when viscous effects are not important. We calculate the...

On Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in superfluids

The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in superfluids is discussed, based on the first experimental observation of such instability at the interface between superfluid He-A and superfluid He-B [1]. We discuss why the Kelvin-Helmholtz criterion, the Landau critical velocity for nucleation of ripplons, and the free energy consideration all give different values for the instability treshold. 1 Classical...