Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability in a Weakly Ionized Medium

Details Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability in a Weakly Ionized Medium Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability in a Weakly Ionized Medium

2004-01-13

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401243v1

Astrophys.J. 608 (2004) 274-281

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

21 pages, 4 figures

Scientific paper

10.1086/392500

Ambient interstellar material may become entrained in outflows from massive stars as a result of shear flow instabilities. We study the linear theory of the Kelvin - Helmholtz instability, the simplest example of shear flow instability, in a partially ionized medium. We model the interaction as a two fluid system (charged and neutral) in a planar geometry. Our principal result is that for much of the relevant parameter space, neutrals and ions are sufficiently decoupled that the neutrals are unstable while the ions are held in place by the magnetic field. Thus, we predict that there should be a detectably narrower line profile in ionized species tracing the outflow compared with neutral species since ionized species are not participating in the turbulent interface with the ambient ISM. Since the magnetic field is frozen to the plasma, it is not tangled by the turbulence in the boundary layer.

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