Hydromagnetic instability in plane Couette flow.
We study the stability of a compressible magnetic plane Couette flow and show that compressibility profoundly alters the stability properties if the magnetic field has a component perpendicular to the direction of flow. The necessary condition of an instability can be satisfied in a wide variety of flows in laboratory and astrophysical conditions. The instability can operate even in a very strong magnetic field which entirely suppresses other magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) instabilities. The growth time of this instability can be rather short and reach approximately 10 shear time scales.
INAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, Via S.Sofia 78, 95123 Catania, Italy.
Alfio
A
Bonanno
Vadim
V
Urpin