Noise-Sustained Convective Instability in a Magnetized Taylor-Couette Flow
The helical magnetorotational instability of the magnetized Taylor-Couette flow is studied numerically in a finite cylinder. A distant upstream insulating boundary is shown to stabilize the convective instability entirely while reducing the growth rate of the absolute instability. The reduction is less severe with larger height. After modeling the boundary conditions properly, the wave patterns observed in the experiment turn out to be a noise-sustained convective instability. After the source of the noise resulted from unstable Ekman and Stewartson layers is switched off, a slowly-decaying inertial oscillation is observed in the simulation. We reach the conclusion that the experiments completed to date have not yet reached the regime of absolute instability.
- Research Organization:
- Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-ACO2-09CH11466
- OSTI ID:
- 950772
- Report Number(s):
- PPPL-4385; TRN: US0902054
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Taylor–Couette flow for astrophysical purposes
Helical magnetorotational instability in magnetized Taylor-Couette flow