Astrophysical Phenomenology and the MRI: Progress, Challenges, and Laboratory Connections

Details Astrophysical Phenomenology and the MRI: Progress, Challenges, and Laboratory Connections Astrophysical Phenomenology and the MRI: Progress, Challenges, and Laboratory Connections

May 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21622203b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #216, #222.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.906

Mathematics

Logic

Scientific paper

The MRI shows excellent promise as a mechanism for generating turbulence with properties needed to transport angular momentum in sufficiently ionized accretion engines. However, it remains a long-term challenge to incorporate what is learned from the MRI into robust practical improvements to current mean field spectral and phenomenological models of accretion engines. We do not understand disk phenomenology nearly as well as stellar phenomenology. In this respect, I discuss how the study of accretion disk theory currently parallels that of mean field dynamo theory, the 21st century version of which has found success through a symbiosis of analytic modeling and numerical simulations. In fact, the two theories are actually complementary components of what should be a unified theory: mean field dynamos prioritize the induction equation whereas mean field accretion theory prioritize the momentum equation. Indeed, much of what has yet to be understood in the application of the MRI to realistic systems is its role in the generation of dynamically significant large-scale fields, which in turn can power coronae and jets. Finally, I discuss how our understanding of the interplay between disks, coronae, and jets may benefit from laboratory plasma studies.

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