Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T16:53:08.585Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Three dimensional equilibria in the magnetohydrodynamic approximation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2009

M. L. Woolley
Affiliation:
Astronomy Centre, University of Sussex

Abstract

By introducing field line potentials for the magnetic induction and current line potentials for the current density, it is shown that the equations which describe a static equilibrium system, in the ideally conducting magnetohydrodynamic approximation, may be derived from two equivalent variational principles. The problem of integration is essentially that of finding a transformation of the potentials which changes one of the associated Lagrangian functions into the other. The assumption that the current density has no component in one direction of a rectangular Cartesian coordinate system leads to a new class of fully three dimensional equilibria having a plane symmetry.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Grad, H. 1962 Proc. Int. Cong. Math. (Stockholm), p. 574.Google Scholar
Grad, H. 1967 Phys. Fluids, 10, 137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kruskal, M. D. & Kulsrud, R. M. 1958 Phys. Fluids, 1, 265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laing, E. W., Roberts, S. J. & Whipple, R. T. P. 1959 J. Nuclear Energy, 16, 49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newcomb, W. A. 1959 Phys. Fluids, 2, 362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolley, M. L. 1975 J. Plasma Phys. 14, 305314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar