On stability of shock waves in relativistic magnetohydrodynamics

Abstract

The structural stability of relativistic magnetohydrodynamic shock waves is studied. Stability results are obtained for the special case of fast parallel shock waves. It is proved that the instability and linear stability domains coincide with those of shock waves in relativistic gas dynamics. The domain of structural (nonlinear) stability, where the uniform Lopatinski condition is fulfilled for the stability problem, is found. It is shown that the structural stability domain is smaller than that of relativistic gas dynamic shock waves.