Recently a variational integrator for ideal magnetohydrodynamics in Lagrangian labeling has been developed. Its built-in frozen-in equation makes it optimal for studying current sheet formation. We use this scheme to study the Hahm-Kulsrud-Taylor problem, which considers the response of a 2D plasma magnetized by a sheared field under sinusoidal boundary forcing. We obtain an equilibrium solutio...

The spontaneous self-organization of two-dimensional magnetized plasma is investigated within the framework of magnetohydrodynamics with a particular emphasis on the symmetry-breaking induced by the shape of the confining boundaries. This symmetry-breaking is quantified by the angular momentum, which is shown to be generated rapidly and spontaneously from initial conditions free from angular mo...

This article investigates the physics that is responsible for creating the outgoing Poynting flux emanating from the ergosphere of a rotating black hole in the limit that the magnetic energy density greatly exceeds the plasma rest mass density (magnetically dominated limit). The underlying physics is derived from published 3-D simulations that obey the general relativistic equations of perfect ...

Plasma shaping effects on temperature gradient-driven instabilities and geodesic acoustic oscillations are investigated with a gyrokinetic theory and a local magnetohydrodynamics equilibrium model. In specific, we focus on the effect of the elongation κ , including its radial derivative ( )( ) r r s ∂ ∂ = κ κ κ , in the large aspect ratio limit. An analytical formula of the dependence of the GA...

A three-dimensional implicit particle-in-cell (iPIC3D) method implemented by S. Markidis et. al. in [“Multiscale simulations of plasma with iPIC3D”, Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, 80(2010), 1509-1519] allows time steps at magnetohydrodynamics time scale. The code requires the solution of two linear systems: a Poisson system related to divergence cleaning, and a system related to a sec...

We describe and analyze a two-level finite-element method for discretizing the equations of stationary, viscous, incompressible magnetohydrodynamics (or MHD). These equations, which model the flow of electrically conducting fluids in the presence of electromagnetic fields, arise in plasma physics and liquid-metal technology as well as in geophysics and astronomy. We treat the equations under ph...

A multi-species magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model based on an extended fluid dynamics description for each plasma species is proposed for the prediction of the flow and behavior of fully ionized non-equilibrium anisotropic plasmas. In particular, a two-fluid (ions and electrons) plasma model is described that makes use of a 10-moment or Gaussian anisotropic moment closure to model ion and electro...

The interaction of a dense discharge plasma with a weak external magnetic field has been studied experimentally. The electron pressure exceeds the field pressure and forms a magnetic hole in the plasma interior. The ions are unmagnetized, while the electrons are in a transition regime from none to full magnetization. The electron confinement changes from Boltzmann equilibrium to magnetic confin...

The finite Larmor radius (FLR)-Landau fluid model, which extends the usual anisotropic magnetohydrodynamics to magnetized collisionless plasmas by retaining linear Landau damping and finite Larmor radius corrections down to the sub-ionic scales in the quasi-transverse directions, is used to study the non-resonant heating of the plasma by randomly driven Alfvén waves. One-dimensional numerical s...