Stability of Magnetic Equilibria in Radio Balloons

Abstract

Current-carrying flows, in the laboratory and in astrophysical jets, can form remarkably stable magnetic structures. Decades of experience shows that such flows often build equilibria that reverse field directions, evolving to an MHD Taylor state, which has remarkable stability properties. We model jets and the magnetic bubbles they build as reversed field pinch equilibria by assuming the driver current to be stiff in the MHD sense. Taking the jet current as rigid and a fixed function of position, we prove a theorem: that the same, simple MHD stability conditions guarantee stability, even after the jet turns off. This means that magnetic structures harboring a massive inventory of magnetic energy can persist long after the building jet current has died away. These may be the relic radio "fossils," "ghost bubbles" or "magnetic balloons" found in clusters. These equilibria under magnetic tension will evolve, retaining the stability properties from that state. The remaining fossil is not a disordered ball of magnetic fields, but a stable structure under tension, able to respond to the slings and arrows of outside forces. Typically their Alfven speeds greatly exceed the cluster sound speed, and so can keep out hot cluster plasmas, leading to x-ray "ghosts." Passing shocks cannot easily destroy them, but can energize and light them up anew at radio frequencies. Bubbles can rise in the hot cluster plasma, perhaps detaching from the parent radio galaxy, yet stable against Rayleigh-Taylor and other modes.