FAST SURFACE-WAVES IN AN IDEAL HALL MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC PLASMA SLAB

The propagation of fast sausage and kink magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) sur face waves in an ideal magnetized plasma slab is studied taking into a ccount the Hall term in the generalized Ohm's law. It is found that th e Hall effect modifies the dispersion characteristics of MHD surface m odes when the Hall term scaling length is not negligible (less than, b ut comparable to the slab thickness). The dispersion relations for bot h modes have been derived for parallel propagation (along the ambient equilibrium magnetic held lines). The Hall term imposes some limits on the possible wave number range. It turns out that the space distribut ion of almost all perturbed quantities in sausage and kink surface wav es with Hall effect is rather complicated as compared to that of usual fast MHD surface waves. The applicability to solar wind aspects of th e results obtained, is briefly discussed. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.