Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:21:34.633Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The effect of random Alfvén waves on the propagation of hydromagnetic waves in a finite-beta plasma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2009

Hiromitsu Hamabata
Affiliation:
Space Science Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, U.S.A.
Tomikazu Namikawa
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Osaka City University, Osaka 558, Japan

Abstract

Using first-order smoothing theory, Fourier analysis and perturbation methods, we obtain the evolution equation of the wave spectrum as well as the nonlinear forces generated by random Alfvén waves in a finite-β plasma with phenomenological Landau-damping effects. The effect of microscale random Alfvén waves on the propagation of large-scale hydromagnetic waves is also investigated by solving the mean-field equations. It is shown that parallel-propagating random Alfvén waves are modulationally stable and that obliquely propagating random Alfvén waves can be modulationally unstable when the energy of random waves is converted to slow magneto-acoustic waves that can be Landau-damped, providing a dissipation mechanism for the Alfvén waves.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barnes, A. 1966 Phys. Fluids, 9, 1483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamabata, H. & Namikawa, T. 1988 J. Plasma Phys. 39, 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamabata, H., Namikawa, T. & Hosoya, Y. 1982 J. Plasma Phys. 28, 309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Namikawa, T. & Hamabata, H. 1982 J. Plasma Phys. 28, 293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Namikawa, T. & Hamabata, H. 1983 J. Plasma Phys. 29, 243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, P. H. & Soward, A. M. 1975 Astron. Nachr. 296, 49.Google Scholar