Magnetohydrodynamics of Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas

Abstract

With 90% of visible matter in the Universe existing in the plasma state, an understanding of magnetohydrodynamics is essential for anyone looking to understand solar and astrophysical processes, from stars to accretion discs and galaxies; as well as laboratory applications focused on harnessing controlled fusion energy.This introduction to magnetohydrodynamics brings together the theory of plasma behavior with advanced topics including the applications of plasma physics to thermonuclear fusion and plasmaastrophysics. Topics covered include streaming and toroidal plasmas, nonlinear dynamics, modern computational techniques, incompressible plasma turbulence and extreme transonic and relativistic plasma flows. The numerical techniques needed to apply magnetohydrodynamics are explained, allowing the reader to move from theory to application and exploit the latest algorithmic advances. Bringing together two previous volumes: Principles of Magnetohydrodynamics and Advanced Magnetohydrodynamics, and completely updated with new examples, insights and applications, this volume constitutes a comprehensive reference for students and researchers interested in plasma physics, astrophysics and thermonuclear fusion.

Switch‐off slow shock/rotational discontinuity structures in collisionless magnetic reconnection: What to look for in satellite observations

“…In Innocenti et al [2015], to characterize the external SS and the internal RD in the compound structure, a subset of the Rankine-Hugoniot (RH) jump conditions [Goedbloed and Poedts, 2004] is verified for both the SS and the RD. The Walén test [Retinò et al, 2005], in its generalized form [Scudder et al, 1999;Le et al, 2014], is verified for the RD.…”

Particle Orbits at the Magnetopause: Kelvin‐Helmholtz Induced Trapping

“…Using linear MHD theory, one can quantify linear growth rates and eigenfunctions for KHI modes in stationary equilibrium configurations (Miura & Pritchett, 1982). There, the recently developed spectral web (Goedbloed, 2018(Goedbloed, , 2019 approach represents a new means to compute all complex eigenfrequencies accessible to a magnetized force-balanced state in motion. When the flowing MHD equilibrium has nontrivial, sheared magnetic field variations, in combination with sheared flow and rotational profiles, precise quantifications of the eigenfrequency-eigenfunction variations on basic equilibrium parameters like the plasma beta or the flow Mach number are actually far from trivial.…”

On the performance of Krylov smoothing for fully coupled AMG preconditioners for VMS resistive MHD

“…The resistive MHD model describes the dynamics of charged fluids in the presence of electromagnetic fields and is used as a base‐level continuum plasma model. Resistive MHD is used to model aspects of fundamental plasma physics phenomena, scientific and technology applications (eg, tokamaks), and astrophysical phenomena . The resulting systems are characterized by strong nonlinear and nonsymmetric coupling of fluid and electromagnetic phenomena, as well as the significant range of time and length scales that these interactions produce.…”

“…Resistive MHD is used to model aspects of fundamental plasma physics phenomena, scientific and technology applications (eg, tokamaks), and astrophysical phenomena. 1 The resulting systems are characterized by strong nonlinear and nonsymmetric coupling of fluid and electromagnetic phenomena, as well as the significant range of time and length scales that these interactions produce. These characteristics make the scalable, robust, accurate, and efficient computational solution of these systems extremely challenging.…”