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Self-Generation Of Magnetic Fields In Weakly Ionized Astrophysical Plasmas

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Book cover Plasma Astrophysics And Space Physics
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Abstract

In weakly ionized astrophysical plasmas, shear flow induced plasma — neutral gas friction yields self-generated magnetic fields of seed-field order. This process is of cosmological importance and relevant for protogalactic systems like Lyα-clouds. In our contribution we illustrate this mechanism by the help of 3-dimensional 2-fluid simulations of primordial rotating gas clumps in Lya-clouds showing that plasma — neutral gas interactions cause large scale magnetic fields of the order of 10-15 G on time scales of the order of 106 yrs.

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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Wiechen, H., Birk, G.T., Lesch, H. (1999). Self-Generation Of Magnetic Fields In Weakly Ionized Astrophysical Plasmas. In: Büchner, J., Axford, I., Marsch, E., Vasyliūnas, V. (eds) Plasma Astrophysics And Space Physics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4203-8_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4203-8_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5828-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-4203-8

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