Department of Physics

18309  Plasma Astrophysics

Course Webpage: https://eclass.uoa.gr/courses/PHYS345/

Course Content

• Basic elements of magnetohydrodynamics (assumptions, equations of non‑relativistic magnetohydrodynamics, magnetic dynamo).
• Magnetohydrodynamic waves and shock waves. The Riemann problem.
• Dynamics of magnetized astrophysical outflows (winds and jets, acceleration and collimation mechanisms, steady‑state flows with ignorable coordinates, critical points and causality, self‑similarity), with applications to outflows from young stellar objects.
• Relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (energy–momentum tensor and equations of ideal relativistic MHD, self‑similar solutions), with applications to gamma‑ray bursts and jets from active galactic nuclei.
• Instabilities (Rayleigh–Taylor, Kelvin–Helmholtz, Jeans, Parker, magnetorotational, pinch, kink).
• Kinetic equation of collisionless magnetized plasma. Plasma perturbations.