Small Structures via Thermal Instability of Partially Ionized Plasma. I. Condensation Mode

TL;DR

This study investigates how ion-neutral friction influences thermal instability in partially ionized plasmas, revealing that friction can allow small-scale structures to grow despite magnetic stabilization.

Contribution

It provides a detailed two-fluid analysis showing that ion-neutral friction can enable thermal instability at smaller scales in weakly ionized plasmas, which was not captured in previous one-fluid models.

Findings

Ion-neutral friction suppresses instability only under strong magnetic and friction conditions.

Friction mainly reduces the growth rate of thermal instability.

Small-scale structures can grow due to friction effects even with magnetic stabilization.

Abstract

(Shortened) Thermal instability of partially ionized plasma is investigated by linear perturbation analysis. According to the previous studies under the one fluid approach, the thermal instability is suppressed due to the magnetic pressure. However, the previous studies did not precisely consider the effect of the ion-neutral friction, since they did not treat the flow as two fluid which is composed of ions and neutrals. Then, we revisit the effect of the ion-neutral friction of the two fluid to the growth of the thermal instability. According to our study, (1) The instability which is characterized by the mean molecular weight of neutrals is suppressed via the ion-neutral friction only when the magnetic field and the friction are sufficiently strong. The suppression owing to the friction occurs even along the field line. If the magnetic field and the friction are not so strong, the instability is not stabilized. (2) The effect of the friction and the magnetic field is mainly reduction of the growth rate of the thermal instability of weakly ionized plasma. (3) The effect of friction does not affect the critical wavelength lambdaF for the thermal instability. This yields that lambdaF of the weakly ionized plasma is not enlarged even when the magnetic field exists. We insist that the thermal instability of the weakly ionized plasma in the magnetic field can grow up even at the small length scale where the instability under the assumption of the one fluid plasma can not grow owing to the stabilization by the magnetic field. (4) The wavelength of the maximum growth rate of the instability shifts shortward according to the decrement of the growth rate, because the friction is effective at rather larger scale. Therefore, smaller structures are expected to appear than those without the ion-neutral friction.