Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability of a Partially Ionized Plasma in Porous Medium

Abstract

The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability of a partially ionized plasma in porous medium to include the effects of collisions and medium porosity is considered. The effect of a uniform horizontal magnetic field on the problem is also studied. In the absence of surface tension, perturbations transverse to the direction of streaming are found to be unaffected by the presence of streaming if perturbations in the direction of streaming are ignored, whereas for perturbations in every other direction, there exists instability for a certain wave-number range. When the surface tension is present, it has a stabilizing effect. The instability of this system is postponed by the presence of magnetic field. The magnetic field and surface tension are able to suppress this Kelvin-Helmholtz instability for small wavelength perturbations and medium porosity reduces the stability range given in terms of a difference in streaming velocities and the Alfvén's velocity. The collisions between ionized and neutral particles do not have any qualitative effect on the nature of the stability or instability.