Rossby waves in the magnetic fluid dynamics of a rotating plasma in the shallow-water approximation

Abstract

We have studied rotating magnetohydrodynamic flows of a thin layer of astrophysical plasma with a free boundary in the β-plane. Nonlinear interactions of the Rossby waves have been analyzed in the shallow-water approximation based on the averaging of the initial equations of the magnetic fluid dynamics of the plasma over the depth. The shallow-water magnetohydrodynamic equations have been generalized to the case of a plasma layer in an external vertical magnetic field. We have considered two types of the flow, viz., the flow in an external vertical magnetic field and the flow in the presence of a horizontal magnetic field. Qualitative analysis of the dispersion curves shows the presence of three-wave nonlinear interactions of the magnetic Rossby waves in both cases. In the particular case of zero external magnetic field, the wave dynamics in the layer of a plasma is analogous to the wave dynamics in a neutral fluid. The asymptotic method of multiscale expansions has been used for deriving the nonlinear equations of interaction in an external vertical magnetic field for slowly varying amplitudes, which describe three-wave interactions in a vertical external magnetic field as well as three-wave interactions of waves in a horizontal magnetic field. It is shown that decay instabilities and parametric wave amplification mechanisms exist in each case under investigation. The instability increments and the parametric gain coefficients have been determined for the relevant processes.