Helical magnetorotational instability in MHD Taylor-Couette flow [Elektronische Ressource] / Jacek T. Szklarski

Helical Magnetorotational Instability inMHD Taylor-Couette FlowJacekT. SzklarskiThesis submitted in PartialFulfillmentof the Requirementsfor the DegreeofDoctor of Philosophy in PhysicsUniversity of PotsdamAstrophysikalischesInstitutPotsdamHelmholtzInstitute for SupercomputationalPhysicsAugust 2007This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/de/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Elektronisch veröffentlicht auf dem Publikationsserver der Universität Potsdam: http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2008/1600/ urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-16002 [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-16002] In memory of Marek SzklarskiAbstractMagnetorotational instability (MRI) is one of the most important and most commoninstabilities in astrophysics. Today it is widely accepted that it serves as a majorsource of turbulent viscosity in accretion disks, the most energy efficient objects intheuniverse.The importance of the MRI for astrophysics has been realized only in recent fifteenyears. However,originally itwasdiscoveredmuchearlier,in1959,inaverydifferentcontext.