The modified drift-Poisson model: Analogies with geophysical flows and Rossby waves

Journal Article · Fri Dec 10 04:00:00 EST 1999 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1302113· OSTI ID:21210345

Castillo-Negrete, D del; Finn, J M ^[1]; Barnes, D C ^[2]

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1. Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
2. Applied Theoretical and Computational Physics Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)

We discuss an analogy between magnetically confined nonneutral plasmas and geophysical fluid dynamics. The analogy has its roots in the modified drift Poisson model, a recently proposed model that takes into account the plasma compression due to the variations of the plasma length [1]. The conservation of the line integrated density in the new model is analogous to the conservation of potential vorticity in the shallow water equations, and the variation of the plasma length is isomorphic to variations in the Coriolis parameter with latitude or to topography variations in the quasigeostrophic dynamics. We discuss a new class of linear and nonlinear waves that owe their existence to the variations of the plasma length. These modes are the analog of Rossby waves in geophysical flows.

• OSTI ID: 21210345
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 498; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPRESSION
FLUID FLOW
FLUID MECHANICS
MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PLASMA
PLASMA DRIFT
PLASMA FLUID EQUATIONS
VARIATIONS