THE MAGNETOSONIC STREAMING

The Faraday effect in gas dynamics called Acoustic Streaming and its a ccompanying nonlinear phenomena have analogies in plasma Magnetohydrod ynamics. A natural place where these effects may occur are astrophysic al objects that maintain oscillatory and stochastic motions and contai n structured magnetic fields. Unlike acoustic streaming in the usual g as dynamics, nonlinear phenomena consisting in the generation of plasm a Rows at the magnetic flux site, ''magnetosonic streaming'' (Ryutova 1986), is accompanied by a current drive and results in a specific evo lution of magnetic Structures: depending on the physical parameters of the medium a single magnetic Aux tube may be either split into thinne r flux tubes or dissolved diffusively into the ambient plasma. The eff ect of the ''magnetosonic streaming'', on one hand, is an obvious cand idate for the generation of mass flows in the intermittent magnetic fi elds, and on the other hand, it plays an essential role in the evoluti on of magnetic structures, and coupling of magnetic flux dynamics with surrounding medium.