Numerical Study of the Transverse Stability of Compressive and Rarefactive Alfven Solitons

Abstract:

A numerical study of the stability of DNLS bright and dark solitons subject to oblique perturbations is reported. The DNLS equation is a weakly nonlinear, weakly dispersive and one dimensional limiting form of MHD with the inclusion of Hall dispersion which has been shown to remain valid for plane wave propagation parallel, as well as quasiparallel, to the ambient magnetic field. Related analytic work has dealt with the transverse stability of circularly polarized Alfven waves [E. Mjolhus, T. Hada, J. Plasma Phys., 43, 257 – 268 (1990)] describing stability in relation to the propagation angle of the perturbation and the wave’s amplitude and wavenumber. The amplitude and wavenumber relation for transverse stability has a striking similarity to the criterion for modulational instability. A prior analytic work [M. S. Ruderman, Fluid Dyn. 22, 299, (1987)] found the dark soliton to be unstable. Our numerical results are established in the context of these analytic results. Additionally, the transverse stability properties of dark solitons will be addressed as they relate to their role in representing magnetic decreases observed in interplanetary space.