15 Oct 2008; Mat-Nat Faculty (UiTø), room A228. Wednesday 10:15-12:00

Einar Mjølhus

"Finite Larmor Radius effects on MHD solitons".

Solitary wave structures in MHD (MagnetoHydroDynamics) models extended with dispersive terms, have recently received some renewed attention because certain space observations have been proposed to be interpreted this way. So far, attention has been directed towards extension with Hall dispersion. It is clear that for consistency, dispersive terms due to finite temperature have to be included. I have worked on an extension including Finite Larmor Radius extension to the pressure tensor. This leads from a set of first order ordinary differential equations to a set of 5 (singular) equations + a constraint.

There are some principal questions of a mathematical nature which can be asked relative to this problem. I aim at explaining in principal terms the physical context, then describing the mathematical questions, and presenting some of my results, which are mainly numerical results. (The mathematical questions are still unsolved.)