Generating a magnetic field by a rotating plasma

¹ Instituto de Alta Investigación, Universidad de Tarapacá - Casilla 7-D Arica, Chile
² Dipartimento di Sistemi Elettrici e Automazione - via Diotisalvi 2, I-56122, Pisa, Italy

^a mauroh69@libero.it
^b bernardo.tellini@ing.unipi.it

Received: 11 May 2010
Accepted: 4 August 2010

Abstract

In this paper we show, via an analytical study, new results for a rotating plasma generating a magnetic field. We study infinitely long cylindrical shells containing plasma. For a plasma of infinite conductivity we show that the existence of a magnetic field is compatible with the dynamics of two coaxial cylinders rotating at different uniform angular velocities, along with a single uniformly accelerated cylinder. In the case of finite conductivity, we show that under a series of constraints on the fluid characteristics and the dynamic fields, such as pressure and external force, the generation of a magnetic field is compatible with the dynamics of the cylindrical shells starting from null initial conditions of all the related fields. Finally, we show that the magnetic field generally is not parallel to the fluid velocity for both infinite and finite conductivity.