Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jun 1991
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991mnras.250..617e&link_type=abstract
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (ISSN 0035-8711), vol. 250, June 1, 1991, p. 617-628.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
24
Astronomical Models, Interstellar Gas, Radiant Cooling, Thermal Instability, Gas Dynamics, Intergalactic Media, Perturbation Theory, Solar Corona, Traveling Waves
Scientific paper
The consequences of the basic nonlinear equation for thermal instability, with the cooling function represented analytically, are explored in some depth. Ths equation leads to a dissipative analog of the virial theorem that has import for the unfolding of the instability as a phase separation process. This is modeled with a one-dimensional cloudy medium and equations of motion are derived for the fronts separating the hot and cold (locally) stable phases. It is found that fronts come together and annihilate, snuffing out the 'cloud' they enclosed. The lifetime of an isolated cloud is an exponentially increasing function of the cloud size. Hence, the medium exhibits an inverse cascade, with increasingly larger clouds predominating, and arrives finally at a state with one or no surviving fronts. To sustain structure in the medium, a spatially periodic excitation source is introduced, leading, for appropriate choices of parameters, to a state of spatial chaos.
Elphick Christian
Regev Oded
Spiegel Edward A.
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