Magnetorotational Instability in a Rotating Liquid Metal Annulus
Authors: Hantao Ji, Jeremy Goodman, and Akira Kageyama
Date of PPPL Report: March 2001
Published in: Monthly Notices of Royal Astronomical Society 325 (2001) L1-L5
Although the magnetorotational instability (MRI) has been widely accepted as a powerful accretion mechanism in magnetized accretion disks, it has not been realized in the laboratory. The possibility of studying MRI in a rotating liquid-metal annulus (Couette flow) is explored by local and global stability analysis and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. Stability diagrams are drawn in dimensionless parameters, and also in terms of the angular velocities at the inner and outer cylinders. It is shown that MRI can be triggered in a moderately rapidly rotating table-top apparatus, using easy-to-handle metals such as gallium. Practical issues of this proposed experiment are discussed.