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Possible Hydromagnetic Simulation of Cosmical Phenomena in the Laboratory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2017

Winston H. Bostick
Winston H. Bostick*
Affiliation:
Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey

Extract

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A technique has been developed whereby ionized gas (plasma) can be projected, by magnetic forces, at speeds of 3X107 cm/sec through a vacuum region free from a magnetic field. The plasma has also been projected across magnetic fields in vacuum at speeds of 107 cm/sec. It is further possible to have present in the magnetic field a background electrically conducting medium in the form of a low-pressure (about one micron) ionized gas. This gas is photoionized by the ultraviolet light from the plasma gun. With the background conducting medium we can calculate, following Spitzer, the electric resistivity η transverse to a strong magnetic field to be η = 1.29X1013(Z lnΛ)T−3/2 emu = 106 emu for T=105 °K (electron temperature), Z=1, lnΛ = 2.3. The magnetic Reynolds number Rm for L =10 cm and V = 107 cm/sec is thus Rm=4πLV/η = 103. Consequently, there is no doubt that with this technique we are producing magnetohydrodynamic phenomena in the laboratory.

Type
Part VII: Some General Gas-Dynamical Problems
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 8: Cosmical Gas Dynamics , July 1958 , pp. 1090 - 1094
Copyright
Copyright © American Physical Society 1958 

References

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4 Spitzer, L., Physics of Fully Ionized Gases (Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York, 1956), p. 86.Google Scholar

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6 Chandrasekhar, S. and Fermi, E., Astrophys J. 118, 113, 116 (1953). Cowling, T. G., Magnetohydrodynamics (Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York, 1956), p. 6.Google Scholar