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On the connection between the magneto-elliptic and magneto-rotational instabilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2012

Krzysztof A. Mizerski  and
Wladimir Lyra
Krzysztof A. Mizerski*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanics and Physics of Fluids, Institute of Fundamental and Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Pawinskiego 5B, 02-106, Poland
Wladimir Lyra
Affiliation:
Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History, 79th Street at Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5192, USA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: krzysztof.mizerski@gmail.com
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Abstract

It has recently been suggested that the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) is a limiting case of the magneto-elliptic instability (MEI). This limit is obtained for horizontal modes in the presence of rotation and an external vertical magnetic field, when the aspect ratio of the elliptic streamlines tends to infinite. In this paper we unveil the link between these previously unconnected mechanisms, explaining both the MEI and the MRI as different manifestations of the same magneto-elliptic-rotational instability (MERI). The growth rates are found and the influence of the magnetic and rotational effects is explained, in particular the effect of the magnetic field on the range of negative Rossby numbers at which the horizontal instability is excited. Furthermore, we show how the horizontal rotational MEI in the rotating shear flow limit is linked to the MRI by the use of the local shearing box model, typically used in the study of accretion discs. In such a limit the growth rates of the two instability types coincide for any power-law-type background angular velocity radial profile with negative exponent corresponding to the value of the Rossby number of the rotating shear flow. The MRI requirement for instability is that the background angular velocity profile is a decreasing function of the distance from the centre of the disc, which corresponds to the horizontal rotational MEI requirement of negative Rossby numbers. Finally a physical interpretation of the horizontal instability, based on a balance between the strain, the Lorentz force and the Coriolis force, is given.

JFM classification

Instability: Instability MHD and Electrohydrodynamics: MHD turbulence Instability: Transition to turbulence
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 698 , 10 May 2012 , pp. 358 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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