ON THE STABILITY OF NON-FORCE-FREE MAGNETIC EQUILIBRIA IN STARS

Journal Article · Sat Nov 20 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/724/1/L34· OSTI ID:21452670

Duez, V; Braithwaite, J ^[1]; Mathis, S ^[2]

---

1. Argelander Institut fuer Astronomie, Universitaet Bonn, Auf dem Huegel 71, D-53111 Bonn (Germany)
2. Laboratoire AIM, CEA/DSM-CNRS-Universite Paris Diderot, IRFU/SAp Centre de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France)

The existence of stable magnetic configurations in white dwarfs, neutron stars, and various non-convective stellar regions is now well recognized. It has recently been shown numerically that various families of equilibria, including axisymmetric mixed poloidal-toroidal configurations, are stable. Here we test the stability of an analytically derived non-force-free magnetic equilibrium resulting from an initial relaxation (self-organization) process, using three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations: the obtained mixed configuration is compared with the dynamical evolution of its purely poloidal and purely toroidal components, both known to be unstable. The mixed equilibrium shows no sign of instability under white noise perturbations. This configuration therefore provides a good description of magnetic equilibrium topology inside non-convective stellar objects and will be useful to initialize magneto-rotational transport in stellar evolution codes and in multi-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations.

• OSTI ID: 21452670
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 724, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/724/1/L34; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
AXIAL SYMMETRY
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
NEUTRON STARS
PERTURBATION THEORY
SIMULATION
STAR EVOLUTION
SUN
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
TOROIDAL CONFIGURATION
WHITE DWARF STARS
ANNULAR SPACE
CLOSED CONFIGURATIONS
CONFIGURATION
DWARF STARS
EVOLUTION
FLUID MECHANICS
HYDRODYNAMICS
MAGNETIC FIELD CONFIGURATIONS
MAIN SEQUENCE STARS
MECHANICS
PHYSICS
SPACE
STARS
SYMMETRY