Rayleigh-Taylor instability of a finitely conducting partially ionized Hall plasma

Abstract

The effects of Hall currents have been investigated on the Rayleigh-Taylor instability of a finitely conducting stratified partially ionized plasma. It is assumed that the plasma is permeated by a two-dimensional horizontal magnetic field. A variational principle is shown to characterize the problem, making use of the existence of a variational principle. Proper solutions have been obtained for a semi-infinite plasma in which density is stratified exponentially along the vertical direction. The dispersion relation has been derived and solved numerically. It is found that the effects of collisions with neutrals has stabilizing while Hall currents and finite conductivity have destabilizing influence on the growth rate of unstable modes of disturbance.