Magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor Instability in an Experiment Simulating a Solar Loop

摘要

A hoop force driven magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability (MRTI) is observed in a laboratory experiment that simulates a solar coronal loop. Increase of the axial wavelength lambda is observed when the axial magnetic field increases. This scaling is consistent with the theoretical MRTI growth rate gamma(2) = gk - 2(k . B-0)(2)/mu(0)rho, which implies that if k is parallel to B-0 (i.e., undular mode), the fastest-growing mode has lambda = 2 pi/k = 8 pi B-0(2)/mu(0)rho g.