ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

Experimental Confirmation of the Standard Magnetorotational Instability Mechanism with a Spring-Mass Analogue

60   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Eric Blackman
 تاريخ النشر 2018
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

The Magnetorotational Instability (MRI) has long been considered a plausibly ubiquitous mechanism to destabilize otherwise stable Keplerian flows to support radially outward transport of angular momentum. Such an efficient transport process would allow fast accretion in astrophysical objects such as stars and black holes to release copious kinetic energy that powers many of the most luminous sources in the universe. But the standard MRI under a purely vertical magnetic field has heretofore never been directly measured despite numerous efforts over more than a decade. Here we report an unambiguous laboratory demonstration of the spring-mass analogue to the standard MRI by comparing motion of a spring-tethered ball within different rotating flows. The experiment corroborates the theory: efficient outward angular momentum transport manifests only for cases with a weak spring in quasi-Keperian flow. Our experimental method accomplishes this in a new way, thereby connecting solid and fluid mechanics to plasma astrophysics.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

92 - R. Wissing , S. Shen , J. Wadsley 2021
We present a thorough numerical study on the MRI using the smoothed particle magnetohydrodynamics method (SPMHD) with the geometric density average force expression (GDSPH). We perform shearing box simulations with different initial setups and a wide range of resolution and dissipation parameters. We show, for the first time, that MRI with sustained turbulence can be simulated successfully with SPH, with results consistent with prior work with grid-based codes. In particular, for the stratified boxes, our simulations reproduce the characteristic butterfly diagram of the MRI dynamo with saturated turbulence for at least 100 orbits. On the contrary, traditional SPH simulations suffer from runaway growth and develop unphysically large azimuthal fields, similar to the results from a recent study with mesh-less methods. We investigated the dependency of MRI turbulence on the numerical Prandtl number in SPH, focusing on the unstratified, zero net-flux case. We found that turbulence can only be sustained with a Prandtl number larger than $sim$2.5, similar to the critical values of physical Prandtl number found in grid-code simulations. However, unlike grid-based codes, the numerical Prandtl number in SPH increases with resolution, and for a fixed Prandtl number, the resulting magnetic energy and stresses are independent of resolution. Mean-field analyses were performed on all simulations, and the resulting transport coefficients indicate no $alpha$-effect in the unstratified cases, but an active $alphaOmega$ dynamo and a diamagnetic pumping effect in the stratified medium, which are generally in agreement with previous studies. There is no clear indication of a shear-current dynamo in our simulation, which is likely to be responsible for a weaker mean-field growth in the tall, unstratified, zero net-flux simulation.
The helical magnetorotational instability is known to work for resistive rotational flows with comparably steep negative or extremely steep positive shear. The corresponding lower and upper Liu limits of the shear are continuously connected when some axial electrical current is allowed to flow through the rotating fluid. Using a local approximation we demonstrate that the magnetohydrodynamic behavior of this dissipation-induced instability is intimately connected with the nonmodal growth and the pseudospectrum of the underlying purely hydrodynamic problem.
We reveal and investigate a new type of linear axisymmetric helical magnetorotational instability which is capable of destabilizing viscous and resistive rotational flows with radially increasing angular velocity, or positive shear. This instability is double-diffusive by nature and is different from the more familiar helical magnetorotational instability, operating at positive shear above the Liu limit, in that it works instead for a wide range of the positive shear when ${rm (i)}$ a combination of axial/poloidal and azimuthal/toroidal magnetic fields is applied and ${rm (ii)}$ the magnetic Prandtl number is not too close to unity. We study this instability first with radially local WKB analysis and then confirm its existence using a global stability analysis of the magnetized flow between two rotating cylinders with conducting or insulating boundaries. From an experimental point of view, we also demonstrate the presence of the new instability in a magnetized viscous and resistive Taylor-Couette flow with positive shear for such values of the flow parameters, which can be realized in upcoming experiments at the DRESDYN facility. Finally, this instability might have implications for the dynamics of the equatorial parts of the solar tachocline and dynamo action there, since the above two necessary conditions for the instability to take place are satisfied in this region. Our global stability calculations for the tachocline-like configuration, representing a thin rotating cylindrical layer with the appropriate boundary conditions -- conducting inner and insulating outer cylinders -- and the values of the flow parameters, indicate that it can indeed arise in this case with a characteristic growth time comparable to the solar cycle period.
147 - C. Nipoti 2015
Clusters of galaxies are embedded in halos of optically thin, gravitationally stratified, weakly magnetized plasma at the systems virial temperature. Due to radiative cooling and anisotropic heat conduction, such intracluster medium (ICM) is subject to local instabilities, which are combinations of the thermal, magnetothermal and heat-flux-driven buoyancy instabilities. If the ICM rotates significantly, its stability properties are substantially modified and, in particular, also the magnetorotational instability (MRI) can play an important role. We study simple models of rotating cool-core clusters and we demonstrate that the MRI can be the dominant instability over significant portions of the clusters, with possible implications for the dynamics and evolution of the cool cores. Our results give further motivation for measuring the rotation of the ICM with future X-ray missions such as ASTRO-H and ATHENA.
Magnetorotational instability (MRI) is one of the fundamental processes in astrophysics, driving angular momentum transport and mass accretion in a wide variety of cosmic objects. Despite much theoretical/numerical and experimental efforts over the l ast decades, its saturation mechanism and amplitude, which sets the angular momentum transport rate, remains not well understood, especially in the limit of high resistivity, or small magnetic Prandtl numbers typical to interiors (dead zones) of protoplanetary disks, liquid cores of planets and liquid metals in laboratory. Using direct numerical simulations, in this paper we investigate the nonlinear development and saturation properties of the helical magnetorotational instability (HMRI) -- a relative of the standard MRI -- in a magnetized Taylor-Couette flow at very low magnetic Prandtl number (correspondingly at low magnetic Reynolds number) relevant to liquid metals. For simplicity, the ratio of azimuthal field to axial field is kept fixed. From the linear theory of HMRI, it is known that the Elsasser number, or interaction parameter determines its growth rate and plays a special role in the dynamics. We show that this parameter is also important in the nonlinear problem. By increasing its value, a sudden transition from weakly nonlinear, where the system is slightly above the linear stability threshold, to strongly nonlinear, or turbulent regime occurs. We calculate the azimuthal and axial energy spectra corresponding to these two regimes and show that they differ qualitatively. Remarkably, the nonlinear state remains in all cases nearly axisymmetric suggesting that HMRI turbulence is quasi two-dimensional in nature. Although the contribution of non-axisymmetric modes increases moderately with the Elsasser number, their total energy remains much smaller than that of the axisymmetric ones.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا