%0 Journal Article %T Kelvin-Helmholtz instability for a bounded plasma flow in a longitudinal magnetic field %+ Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI) %+ Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace (LPC2E) %A Burinskaya, T. %A Shevelev, M. %A Rauch, Jean-Louis %< avec comité de lecture %@ 1063-780X %J Fizika Plazmy / Plasma Physics Reports %I MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica %V 37 %N 1 %P 43-55 %8 2011 %D 2011 %R 10.1134/S1063780X10111029 %Z Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Plasma Physics [physics.plasm-ph] %Z Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Space Physics [physics.space-ph]Journal articles %X Kelvin-Helmholtz MHD instability in a plane three-layer plasma is investigated. A general dispersion relation for the case of arbitrarily orientated magnetic fields and flow velocities in the layers is derived, and its solutions for a bounded plasma flow in a longitudinal magnetic field are studied numerically. Analysis of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability for different ion acoustic velocities shows that perturbations with wavelengths on the order of or longer than the flow thickness can grow in an arbitrary direction even at a zero temperature. Oscillations excited at small angles with respect to the magnetic field exist in a limited range of wavenumbers even without allowance for the finite width of the transition region between the flow and the ambient plasma. It is shown that, in a low-temperature plasma, solutions resulting in kink-like deformations of the plasma flow grow at a higher rate than those resulting in quasi-symmetric (sausage-like) deformations. The transverse structure of oscillatory-damped eigenmodes in a low-temperature plasma is analyzed. The results obtained are used to explain mechanisms for the excitation of ultra-low-frequency long-wavelength oscillations propagating along the magnetic field in the plasma sheet boundary layer of the Earth’s magnetotail penetrated by fast plasma flows. %G English %2 https://insu.hal.science/insu-02507698/document %2 https://insu.hal.science/insu-02507698/file/art_10.1134_S1063780X10111029.pdf %L insu-02507698 %U https://insu.hal.science/insu-02507698 %~ OBSPM %~ INSU %~ CNRS %~ UNIV-ORLEANS %~ CNES %~ OSUC %~ LPC2E %~ PSL %~ OBSPM-PSL