Bifurcation in Viscoresistive MHD: The Hartmann Number and the Reversed Field Pinch

A scaling approach to the simplest viscoresistive MI-ID model reveals that the Prandtl number acts only through the inertia term. When this term is negligible the dynamics is ruled by the Hartmann number H only. This occurs for the reversed field pinch dynamics as seen by numerical simulation of the model. When H is large the system is in a multiple helicity state. In the vicinity of H = 2500 the system displays temporal intermittency with laminar phases of quasi-single-helicity (SH) type. For lower H's two basins of SH are shown to coexist. SH regimes are of interest because of their nonchaotic magnetic field.