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Updated: May 23, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Relativistic magnetohydrodynamics in one dimension
Maxim Lyutikov1, Samuel Hadden
1Department of Physics, Purdue University, 525 Northwestern Avenue, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2036, USA.
Abstract:
We derive a number of solutions for one-dimensional dynamics of relativistic magnetized plasma that can be used as benchmark estimates in relativistic hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic numerical codes. First, we analyze the properties of simple waves of fast modes propagating orthogonally to the magnetic field in relativistically hot plasma. The magnetic and kinetic pressures obey different equations of state, so that the system behaves as a mixture of gases with different polytropic indices. We find the self-similar solutions for the expansion of hot strongly magnetized plasma into vacuum. Second, we derive linear hodograph and Darboux equations for the relativistic Khalatnikov potential, which describe arbitrary one-dimensional isentropic relativistic motion of cold magnetized plasma and find their general and particular solutions. The obtained hodograph and Darboux equations are very powerful: A system of highly nonlinear, relativistic, time-dependent equations describing arbitrary (not necessarily self-similar) dynamics of highly magnetized plasma reduces to a single linear differential equation.
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