Rayleigh-Taylor instability in magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the Crab nebula

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the development of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) filaments in axisymmetric simulations of pulsar wind nebulae (PWN). High-resolution adaptive mesh refinement magnetohydrodynamic simulations are used to resolve the non-linear evolution of the instability. The typical separation of filaments is mediated by the turbulent flow in the nebula and hierarchical growth of the filaments. The strong magnetic dissipation and field randomization found in recent global three-dimensional simulations of PWN suggest that magnetic tension is not strong enough to suppress the growth of RT filaments, in agreement with the observations of prominent filaments in the Crab nebula. The long-term axisymmetric results presented here confirm this finding. © 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.