(This session will run until 1:00 PM)
10:30 AM-12:30 PM
Terman Auditorium
Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) describes the evolution of an electrically conducting fluid, or an ionized gas. Its applications to problems in physics and engineering are manifold, and include astrophysics, fusion research, and liquid metal technology. The speakers will address various issues, including modeling of magnetofluid turbulence, numerical and analytical issues involved in the study of MHD equilibria, direct numerical simulations of relativistic MHD and magnetohydrodynamic waves, and applications to the study of the solar corona and the solar wind. For the modeling of coherent structures in turbulence, equilibrium statistical mechanics methods will be discussed by several speakers. The advantage of such methods is that they give precise predictions that can be compared to experiments and numerical simulations. Some disadvantages are that these methods say nothing about the evolution of the magnetofluid, and all such methods are of a heuristic nature. Direct numerical simulations of magnetohydrodynamics furnish some qualitative information about the nature of magnetofluid turbulence, but such simulations are limited by numerical approximations, etc. The analysis of MHD equilibria sheds insight into the regularity of possible equilibrium states of a magnetofluid. However, it is not clear what equilibrium states, if any, the magnetofluid selects.
Organizers: Richard K. Jordan, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and Paul G. Schmidt, Auburn University
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