Relaxed States of a Magnetized Plasma with Minimum Dissipation

Abstract

Relaxed States of a slightly resistive and turbulent magnetized plasma is obtained by invoking the principle of minimum dissipation which leads to curl curl curl B = λB . A solution of the above equation is accomplished using the analytic continuation of the Chandrasekhar-Kendall eigenfunctions in the complex domain. The new features of this theory is to show (i) a single fluid can relax to an MHD equilibrium which can support pressure gradient even without a flow, (ii) field reversal (RFP) in states that are not force free.

LateX, 10 pages, 5 figures (ps), 18 references