Instabilities of a conducting fluid flow. I.

V. I. Aref'ev

Abstract
The instabilities of a plane-parallel flow of a conducting fluid in a MHD duct in crossed electric (E) and magnetic (M) fields are investigated in a two-component hydrodynamical context. Attention is directed to the singular role of kinetic excitation effects, which cause the instability criterion to have a lower value than in the single-fluid approximation. The kinetic instabilities are analyzed within the framework of the quasilinear theory describing a weakly turbulent flow. The turbulent flow profile is found with allowance for turbulent conduction and viscosity. The theoretical results exhibit qualitative agreement with the experimental laws discussed in the article.