ELECTRODYNAMIC STABILITY OF A SELF-GRAVITATING FLUID CYLINDER

The electrogravitational stability of a dielectric fluid cylinder (density rho(1)) bounded by an infinite dielectric medium (density rho(2)) is investigated. The dispersion relation is derived and studied analytically and numerically. The analysis indicates that an applied axial electric field has a strong stabilizing influence as epsilon(i) > epsilon(e) (the dielectric constant). It is found that the model is gravitationally stable or unstable if [2(1-rho(2)/rho(1))I-0 (x)K-0(x)] is less or greater than unity. It is clarified that the gravitational instability of a sufficiently long wave will not be suppressed whatever the strength of the electric field.