Woltjer-Taylor State Without Taylor's Conjecture - Plasma Relaxation at all Wavelengths
Authors: Hong Qin,Wandong Liu, Hong Li, and Jonathan Squire
Abstract:
In astrophysical and laboratory plasmas, it has been discovered that plasmas relax towards
the well-known Woltjer-Taylor state specified by ∇ x B = αB for a constant α . To explain
how such a relaxed state is reached, Taylor developed his famous relaxation theory based on the
conjecture that the relaxation is dominated by short wavelength fluctuations. However, there is
no conclusive experimental and numerical evidence to support Taylor's conjecture. A new theory
is developed, which predicts that the system will evolve towards the Woltjer-Taylor state for an
arbitrary fluctuation spectrum.
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Submitted to: Physical Review Letters (June 2012)
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Download PPPL-4823 (pdf 592 KB 11 pp)
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