Electrothermal instability
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Not to be confused with the magnetoacoustic instability discovered by the same author.
The electrothermal instability (also known as ionization instability, non-equilibrium instability or Velikhov instability in the literature) is a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instability appearing in magnetized non-thermal plasmas used in MHD converters. It was first theoretically discovered in 1962 and experimentally measured into a MHD generator in 1963 by Evgeny Velikhov.[1][2][3]
"This paper shows that it is possible to assert sufficiently specifically that the ionization instability is the number one problem for the utilization of a plasma with hot electrons."
āāDr. Evgeny Velikov, at the 7th International Conference on Ionization Phenomena in Gases, Belgrade, Yugoslavia (1965).[3]