Stationary waves at the interface between a plasma stream and magnetic field

A uniformly-streaming compressible and infinitely-conducting plasma is confined by a magnetic field aligned with the stream. The system is disturbed by introducing magnetic dipoles into the field. A Fourier-transform method is used to determine the displacement of the interface between the streaming plasma and the magnetic field within the framework of a ‘shallow-water’ approximation. For the case of a subsonic plasma stream, stationary waves appear on the interface upstream of the dipoles, and it is found that (i) these stationary waves are possible only if the gravity effects on the plasma are weak enough; (ii) the effect of surface tension at the interface is to reduce the amplitude and increase the wavelength of these waves. For the case of a supersonic plasma stream, however, stationary waves at the interface are not possible.