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SUMMARY:On the Dynamical Stability of Weakly-Collisional Plasmas with Ther
 mal and Composition Gradients  - Martin Pessah (Niels Bohr Institute\, Cop
 enhagen\, Denmark)
DTSTART:20121105T160000Z
DTEND:20121105T170000Z
UID:TALK40650@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jérôme Guilet
DESCRIPTION:Over the last decade\, substantial efforts have been devoted t
 o understanding the stability properties\, transport phenomena\, and long-
 term evolution of weakly-collisional\, magnetized plasmas which are strati
 fied in temperature. The insights gained by these studies\nhave contribut
 ed to our current understanding of the processes that determine the physic
 al evolution and observational properties of the intra-cluster medium (ICM
 ) permeating galaxy clusters. Motivated by\nthe need to obtain a more comp
 lete picture of the dynamical properties of the ICM\, I will discuss the s
 tability of a weakly-collisional atmosphere stratified in both temperatur
 e and composition. I will show that the plasma can be subject to a wide va
 riety of unstable modes which include modfications to the magnetothermal i
 nstability (MTI)\, the heat-flux-driven buoyancy instability (HBI)\, and 
 overstable gravity modes previously studied in homogeneous media. I will d
 iscuss the astrophysical implications of these findings for a representat
 ive galaxy cluster where helium has sedimented. 
LOCATION:MR14\,  Centre for Mathematical Sciences\, Wilberforce Road\, Cam
 bridge
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