No Arabic abstract
We analyze the observations from Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO)-A&B/COR-1 of an eruptive prominence in the intermediate corona on 7 June 2011 at 08:45 UT, which consists of magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) unstable plasma segments. Its upper northward segment shows spatio-temporal evolution of MRT instability in form of finger structures upto the outer corona and low inter-planetary space. Using method of Dolei et al.(2014), It is estimated that the density in each bright finger is greater than corresponding dark region lying below of it in the surrounding intermediate corona. The instability is evolved due to wave perturbations that are parallel to the magnetic field at the density interface. We conjecture that the prominence plasma is supported by tension component of the magnetic field against gravity. Using linear stability theory, magnetic field is estimated as 21-40 mG to suppress growth of MRT in the observed finger structures. In the southward plasma segment, a horn-like structure is observed at 11:55 UT in the intermediate corona that also indicates MRT instability. Falling blobs are also observed in both the plasma segments. In the outer corona upto 6-13 solar radii, the mushroom-like plasma structures have been identified in the upper northward MRT unstable plasma segment using STEREO-A/COR-2. These structures most likely grew due to the breaking and twisting of fingers at large spatial scales in weaker magnetic fields. In the lower inter-planetary space upto 20 solar radii, these structures are fragmented into various small-scale localized plasma spikes most likely due to turbulent mixing.
This work examines the effect of the embedded magnetic field strength on the non-linear development of the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (RTI) (with a field-aligned interface) in an ideal gas close to the incompressible limit in three dimensions. Numerical experiments are conducted in a domain sufficiently large so as to allow the predicted critical modes to develop in a physically realistic manner. The ratio between gravity, which drives the instability in this case (as well as in several of the corresponding observations), and magnetic field strength is taken up to a ratio which accurately reflects that of observed astrophysical plasma, in order to allow comparison between the results of the simulations and the observational data which served as inspiration for this work. This study finds reduced non-linear growth of the rising bubbles of the RTI for stronger magnetic fields, and that this is directly due to the change in magnetic field strength, rather than the indirect effect of altering characteristic length scales with respect to domain size. By examining the growth of the falling spikes, the growth rate appears to be enhanced for the strongest magnetic field strengths, suggesting that rather than affecting the development of the system as a whole, increased magnetic field strengths in fact introduce an asymmetry to the system. Further investigation of this effect also revealed that the greater this asymmetry, the less efficiently the gravitational energy is released. By better understanding the under-studied regime of such a major phenomenon in astrophysics, deeper explanations for observations may be sought, and this work illustrates that the strength of magnetic fields in astrophysical plasmas influences observed RTI in subtle and complex ways.
Clouds are expected to form in a wide range of conditions in the atmosphere of exoplanets given the large range of possible condensible species. However this diversity might lead to very different small-scale dynamics depending on radiative transfer in various thermal conditions: we aim at providing some insights into these dynamical regimes. We perform an analytical linear stability analysis of a compositional discontinuity with a heating source term that depends on composition. We also perform idealized two-dimensional (2D) simulations of an opacity discontinuity in a stratified medium with the code ARK. We use a two-stream grey model for radiative transfer and explore the brown-dwarf and earth-like regimes. We reveal the existence of a Radiative Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (RRTI hereafter, a particular case of diabatic Rayleigh-Taylor instability) when an opacity discontinuity is present in a stratified medium. This instability is similar in nature to diabatic convection and relies only on buoyancy with radiative transfer heating and cooling. When the temperature is decreasing with height in the atmosphere, a lower-opacity medium on top of a higher-opacity medium is dynamically unstable while a higher-opacity medium on top of a lower-opacity medium is stable. This stability/instability behavior is reversed if the temperature is increasing with height. The existence of the RRTI could have important implications for the stability of the cloud cover of a wide range of planetary atmospheres. In our solar system, it could help explain the formation of mammatus cloud in Earth atmospheres and the existence of Venus cloud deck. Likewise, it suggests that stable and large scale cloud covers could be ubiquitous in strongly irradiated exoplanets but might be more patchy in low-irradiated or isolated objects like brown dwarfs and directly imaged exoplanets.
We investigate the development of the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability at the inner edge of an astrophysical disk around a spinning central black hole. We solve the equations of general relativity that govern small amplitude oscillations of a discontinuous interface in a Keplerian disk threaded by an ordered magnetic field, and we derive a stability criterion that depends on the central black hole spin and the accumulated magnetic field. We also compare our results with the results of GR MHD simulations of black hole accretion flows that reach a magnetically arrested state (MAD). We found that the instability growth timescales that correspond to the simulation parameters are comparable to the corresponding timescales for free-fall accretion from the ISCO onto the black hole. We thus propose that the Rayleigh-Taylor instability disrupts the accumulation of magnetic flux onto the black hole horizon as the disk reaches a MAD state.
The dynamics of a thin liquid film on the underside of a curved cylindrical substrate is studied. The evolution of the liquid layer is investigated as the film thickness and the radius of curvature of the substrate are varied. A dimensionless parameter (a modified Bond number) that incorporates both geometric parameters, gravity, and surface tension is identified, and allows the observations to be classified according to three different flow regimes: stable films, films with transient growth of perturbations followed by decay, and unstable films. Experiments and theory confirm that, below a critical value of the Bond number, curvature of the substrate suppresses the Rayleigh-Taylor instability.
In this work, we explore the dynamical impacts and observable signatures of two-fluid effects in the parameter regimes when ion-neutral collisions do not fully couple the neutral and charged fluids. The purpose of this study is to deepen our understanding of the RTI and the effects of the partial ionization on the development of RTI using non-linear two-fluid numerical simulations. Our two-fluid model takes into account neutral viscosity, thermal conductivity, and collisional interaction between neutrals and charges: ionization/recombination, energy and momentum transfer, and frictional heating. In this paper II, the sensitivity of the RTI dynamics to collisional effects for different magnetic field configurations supporting the prominence thread is explored. This is done by artificially varying, or eliminating, effects of both elastic and inelastic collisions by modifying the model equations. We find that ionization and recombination reactions between ionized and neutral fluids, if in equilibrium prior to the onset of the instability, do not substantially impact the development of the primary RTI. However, such reactions can impact development of secondary structures during mixing of the cold prominence and hotter surrounding coronal material. We find that collisionality within and between ionized and neutral particle populations play an important role in both linear and non-linear development of RTI, with ion-neutral collision frequency as the primary determining factor in development or damping of small scale structures. We also observe that degree and signatures of flow decoupling between ion and neutral fluids can depend both on the inter-particle collisionality and the magnetic field configuration of the prominence thread.