MHD-shear instability in solar wind plasma with anisotropy and heat flux effects

Rajab Ismayilli, Shamakhy Astrophysical Observatory

We investigated a shear instability of the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) type in a plasma with temperature anisotropy under the MHD approximation. To solve the problem, a system of 16-moment MHD transport equations are used. We consider supersonic flows of two semi-infinite anisotropic and homogeneous plasma layers with different physical parameters and velocities. For the general case, i.e.\ when the interface between these two flows is a transition layer with a finite thickness, we derived a general linear differential equation framework for determining the eigenmodes in the system. Furthermore, we considered thoroughly the limiting case of a zero thickness transition zone (contact discontinuity). The analysis enabled applying appropriate boundary conditions to derive the dispersion equation for interface waves. The obtained equation is analyzed in detail with heat flux effect.