• DOI:10.1017/S0022377816000325
• Corpus ID: 119263167

Covariant magnetic connection hypersurfaces

@article{Pegoraro2016CovariantMC,
  title={Covariant magnetic connection hypersurfaces},
  author={Francesco Pegoraro},
  journal={Journal of Plasma Physics},
  year={2016},
  volume={82}
}

• F. Pegoraro
• Published 12 March 2016
• Physics
• Journal of Plasma Physics

In the single fluid, non-relativistic, ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) plasma description, magnetic field lines play a fundamental role by defining dynamically preserved ‘magnetic connections’ between plasma elements. Here we show how the concept of magnetic connection needs to be generalized in the case of a relativistic MHD description where we require covariance under arbitrary Lorentz transformations. This is performed by defining 2-D magnetic connection hypersurfaces in the 4-D Minkowski space. This generalization accounts for the loss of simultaneity between spatially separated events in different frames and is expected to provide a powerful insight into the 4-D geometry of electromagnetic fields when $\boldsymbol{E}\boldsymbol{\cdot }\boldsymbol{B}=0$ .