Abstract
A study is made of the magnetohydrostatic behaviour of a plasma column in a decreasing external axial magnetic field by exploiting its analogy with the behaviour of a vortex tube embedded in a decelerating irrotational flow. The theory that considers only the initial and the final static states, ignoring the dynamics of the transition, predicts that the increased expansion of the plasma column in a decreasing external axial magnetic field becomes catastrophic and the column would burst at a critical value of the latter.
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References
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Shivamoggi, B.K. Magnetohydrostatic behaviour of a plasma column in a decreasing external axial magnetic field. Applied Scientific Research 36, 333–338 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00411892
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00411892