A Simulation and Theoretical Study of Energy Transport on the Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability in the MHD Plasmas

Details A Simulation and Theoretical Study of Energy Transport on the Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability in the MHD Plasmas A Simulation and Theoretical Study of Energy Transport on the Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability in the MHD Plasmas

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsm13a1596l&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SM13A-1596

Physics

Plasma Physics

[2149] Interplanetary Physics / Mhd Waves And Turbulence, [2159] Interplanetary Physics / Plasma Waves And Turbulence, [6050] Planetary Sciences: Comets And Small Bodies / Plasma And Mhd Instabilities, [7836] Space Plasma Physics / Mhd Waves And Instabilities

Scientific paper

Energy transport on the Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) instability is studied by the two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation. In the two-dimensional simulation, the ridges of the surface waves are the line sources that can perturb the ambient plasma. Then, the slow-mode, the intermediate-mode and the fast-mode waves will be continually radiated from these line sources. The fast-mode waves will propagate away from these line sources. When the fast-mode Mach number of the surface wave is greater than or equal to one, the K-H instability will develop into the fast-mode Mach-cone-like plane waves generated by the constructive interferences of the fast-mode waves emitted from the ridges of the surface waves. In contrast with the surface waves, these Mach-cone-like plane waves can expand away from the velocity shear layer. The fast-mode wave should play an important role in transporting the wave energy away from the velocity shear layer. Our results indicate that the energy transport on the K-H instability will not take place only in the vicinity of the boundary layer since the fast-mode waves emitted from the ridges of the surface waves will continually extract a part of the energy of the surface waves and transport the energy away from the velocity shear layer. For the K-H instability characterized by the small eddies or the vortex structures, a small amount of the energy can be transported away from the boundary layer by the fast-mode waves. On the other hand, a huge amount of the energy can be transported away from the velocity shear layer with the expanding of the fast-mode Mach-cone-like plane waves. We conclude that the occurrences of the fast-mode Mach-cone-like plane waves generated by the K-H instability can provide an efficient way to transfer the wave energy deep into the medium far from the velocity shear layer. In the study, we also calculate the energy transport velocity and the theoretical group velocity of the fast-mode waves. These results are also compared with the results obtained by the linear wave analysis.

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