Hydrodynamic Effects on Field-Generating Thermal Instability in Laser-Heated Plasma

Abstract

Supersonic outward flow and hydrodynamic perturbations are taken into account in the analysis of the magnetic field generating thermal instability. In the subcritical density region, where the instability is unstable, the stabilization by the supersonic plasma flow is efficient only in low density and low temperature plasma, except for the flow with large Mach number. The supercritical density region, where the instability is stable from Tidman and Shanny’s theory, becomes unstable due to the magnetic field arising from a perturbation of number density.