Transition from Collisionless to Collisional MRI

Sharma, Prateek ; Hammett, Gregory W. ; Quataert, Eliot

Princeton University. Plasma Physics Laboratory.

关键词: Saturation;    Magnetic Fields;    Wavelengths;    70 Plasma Physics And Fusion Technology;    Kinetics;   

DOI  :  10.2172/814711
RP-ID  :  PPPL-3843
RP-ID  :  AC02-76CH03073
RP-ID  :  814711

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

Recent calculations by Quataert et al. (2002) found that the growth rates of the magnetorotational instability (MRI) in a collisionless plasma can differ significantly from those calculated using MHD. This can be important in hot accretion flows around compact objects. In this paper, we study the transition from the collisionless kinetic regime to the collisional MHD regime, mapping out the dependence of the MRI growth rate on collisionality. A kinetic closure scheme for a magnetized plasma is used that includes the effect of collisions via a BGK operator. The transition to MHD occurs as the mean free path becomes short compared to the parallel wavelength 2*/k(sub)||. In the weak magnetic field regime where the Alfven and MRI frequencies w are small compared to the sound wave frequency k(sub)||c(sub)0, the dynamics are still effectively collisionless even if omega << v, so long as the collision frequency v << k(sub)||c(sub)0; for an accretion flow this requires n less than or approximately equal to *(square root of b). The low collisionality regime not only modifies the MRI growth rate, but also introduces collisionless Landau or Barnes damping of long wavelength modes, which may be important for the nonlinear saturation of the MRI.