Thermal stability of a weakly magnetized rotating plasma

Abstract

The thermal stability of a weakly magnetized, rotating, stratified, optically thin plasma is studied by means of linear-perturbation analysis. We derive dispersion relations and criteria for stability against axisymmetric perturbations that generalize previous results on either nonrotating or unmagnetized fluids. The implications for the hot atmospheres of galaxies and galaxy clusters are discussed. © 2012 The Authors.