Fluid and MHD Instabiliets of Heliopause Driven by Plasma-Neutral Interaction

Details Fluid and MHD Instabiliets of Heliopause Driven by Plasma-Neutral Interaction Fluid and MHD Instabiliets of Heliopause Driven by Plasma-Neutral Interaction

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsh21b1822d&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SH21B-1822

Physics

Plasma Physics

[7811] Space Plasma Physics / Discontinuities, [7827] Space Plasma Physics / Kinetic And Mhd Theory, [7836] Space Plasma Physics / Mhd Waves And Instabilities, [7899] Space Plasma Physics / General Or Miscellaneous

Scientific paper

The heliopause (HP) is the outer edge of the heliosphere that separates the tenuous and hot heliosheath plasma from the relatively dense and cool magnetized plasma of the local interstellar medium (LISM). Macroscopically, as a surface of tangential discontinuity, the HP is subjected to both Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) and Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instabilities. The coupling between plasma ions and neutral atoms through the process of charge exchange provides the "effective gravity" , while a shear flow due to the velocity difference between the heliosheath and the interstellar flows could drive KH modes. We derive analytically the linearized dispersion relations for waves propagating along the surface of this discontinuity from a fluid picture, both for RT and KH instabilities. We also included a second population of energetic neutrals, which may be produced by the charge exchange interactions between the hot solar wind plasma in the heliosheath with the interstellar hydrogen. Our analysis shows that as a consequence of charge exchange interaction, the HP is unconditionally unstable to all perturbations. It is shown that the presence of a second type of hot neutrals enhances the growth rate of the instability, and also generates unstable acoustic and magnetoacoustic modes propagating along the surface of the HP.

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