A bicharacteristic formulation of the ideal MHD equations

Gupta, Hari Shanker and Prasad, Phoolan (2011) A bicharacteristic formulation of the ideal MHD equations. In: Journal of Plasma Physics, 77 (Part 2). pp. 169-191.

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Abstract

On a characteristic surface Omega of a hyperbolic system of first-order equations in multi-dimensions (x, t), there exits a compatibility condition which is in the form of a transport equation along a bicharacteristic on Omega. This result can be interpreted also as a transport equation along rays of the wavefront Omega(t) in x-space associated with Omega. For a system of quasi-linear equations, the ray equations (which has two distinct parts) and the transport equation form a coupled system of underdetermined equations. As an example of this bicharacteristic formulation, we consider two-dimensional unsteady flow of an ideal magnetohydrodynamics gas with a plane aligned magnetic field. For any mode of propagation in this two-dimensional flow, there are three ray equations: two for the spatial coordinates x and y and one for the ray diffraction. In spite of little longer calculations, the final four equations (three ray equations and one transport equation) for the fast magneto-acoustic wave are simple and elegant and cannot be derived in these simple forms by use of a computer program like REDUCE.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Cambridge University Press.
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Mathematics
Date Deposited:	07 Apr 2011 06:01
Last Modified:	26 May 2011 10:33
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/id/eprint/36003

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