Multicomponent theory of buoyancy instabilities in magnetized astrophysical plasmas: MHD analysis revisited

TL;DR

This paper develops a multicomponent plasma theory to analyze buoyancy instabilities, revealing that thermal flux generally stabilizes the plasma and highlighting differences from traditional MHD approaches, with implications for astrophysical environments.

Contribution

The paper introduces a multicomponent plasma approach to buoyancy instabilities, challenging MHD-based conclusions and emphasizing the role of electric fields and thermal flux in stability analysis.

Findings

Thermal flux tends to stabilize buoyancy instabilities.

Instability occurs only within a narrow temperature gradient range.

Opposite signs of electron and ion temperature gradients can lead to instability.

Abstract

We develop a theory of buoyancy instabilities of the electron-ion plasma with the heat flux based on not the MHD equations, but using the multicomponent plasma approach. We investigate a geometry in which the background magnetic field, gravity, and stratification are directed along one axis. No simplifications usual for the MHD-approach in studying these instabilities are used. The background electron thermal flux and collisions between electrons and ions are included. We derive the simple dispersion relation, which shows that the thermal flux perturbation generally stabilizes an instability. There is a narrow region of the temperature gradient, where an instability is possible. This result contradicts to a conclusion obtained in the MHD-approach. We show that the reason of this contradiction is the simplified assumptions used in the MHD analysis of buoyancy instabilities and the role of the longitudinal electric field perturbation, which is not captured by the MHD equations. Our dispersion relation also shows that a medium with the electron thermal flux can be unstable, if the temperature gradient of ions and electrons have the opposite signs. The results obtained can be applied to ICM and clusters of galaxies.