LECTURES ON THE HYDROMAGNETIC STABILITY OF A CYLINDRICAL PLASMA II. INVESTIGATIONS OF STABILITY USING INTEGRAL PROPERTIES OF THE HYDROMAGNETIC EQUATIONS

摘要

In some stability problems it is either impossible or inconvenient to solve the normal mode equations completely. Then it is sometimes possible to obtain more limited information about the stability of the system by studying integral properties of the hydromagnetic equations. One such method can be used if the system is in static equilibrium and possesses a constant energy;then the stability against any perturbation can be investigated by finding whether or not the perturbation increases the potential energy of the system.nIn this lecture a brief account of the hydromagnetic energy principle is given and from it are deduced some general stability properties of a cylindrical plasma.