Magnetic confinement of cosmic clouds |
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| Authors: | Michel Azar W B Thompson |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA;(2) Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA |
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| Abstract: | The role of the magnetic field in the confinenment or compression of interstellar gas clouds is reconsidered. The virial theorem for an isolated magnetized cloud in the presence of distant magnetic sources is reformulated in terms of moments of the internal and external currents, and an equilibrium condition is derived. This condition is applied to the interaction between isolated clouds for the simple- and artificial-case in which the field of each cloud is a dipole. With the simplest of statistical assumptions, the probability of any given cloud being compressed is calculated as  10%, the magnetic field acting as a medium which transmits the kinetic pressure between clouds. Even when compression occurs the magnetic pressure 1/2B
2 may decrease on leaving the cloud surface.Paper dedicated to Professor Hannes Alfvén on the occasion of his 80th birthday, 30 May 1988. |
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