URL: https://physikseminar.desy.de/zeuthen/past_colloquia/colloquia_in_2016/november_23_2016/@@siteview
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Magnetohydrodynamics for Pedestrians
Rolf Bühler (DESY)
Seminar room 3, 15:00
Most baryonic matter in the Universe is in the form of plasma. Plasma physics is essential to understand astronomical sources, as e.g. stars, active galaxies, pulsars, gamma-ray burst, galaxy clusters or the Cosmic Microwave Background. Plasma physics is also important to describe phenomena here at Earth, as e.g. the polar aurorae or fusion reactors. In this presentation, I will give an introduction to the theory of Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) used to describe magnetized plasmas in an approximate way. I will motivate the MHD equations and discuss some of their implications, such as the concepts of "flux freezing" and Alfven waves. Finally, I will show astrophysical applications of the theory on the Solar Wind and Pulsar Wind Nebulae.
