Elliptic and magneto-elliptic instabilities

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena CA, 91109

^a e-mail: wlyra@jpl.nasa.gov

Abstract

Vortices are the fundamental units of turbulent flow. Understanding their stability properties therefore provides fundamental insights on the nature of turbulence itself. In this contribution I briely review the phenomenological aspects of the instability of elliptic streamlines, in the hydro (elliptic instability) and hydromagnetic (magneto-elliptic instability) regimes. Vortex survival in disks is a balance between vortex destruction by these mechanisms, and vortex production by others, namely, the Rossby wave instability and the baroclinic instability.