COMPRESSIBLE HYDROMAGNETIC SHEAR FLOWS WITH ANISOTROPIC THERMAL PRESSURE - NONMODAL STUDY OF WAVES AND INSTABILITIES

The evolution of linear magnetohydrodynamic waves and plasma instabili ties (firehose and mirror) in a compressible, magnetized plane Couette flow with anisotropic thermal pressure is investigated. In the presen t study we revealed that the pressure anisotropy brings significant no velty to the effect of coupling and linear reciprocal transformation o f the wave modes originally discovered [Chagelishvili, Rogava, and Tsi klauri, Phys. Rev. E 53, 6028 (1996)]. It is found that behavior of th e firehose and mirror instabilities is drastically changed due to the presence of shear in the flow. These novel effects are caused by the n on-normality of linear dynamics in shear flows and they have been reve aled through use of the nonmodal approach. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.