Hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in stellar and planetary interiors

This PhD research project will study various hydrodynamic or magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in stellar and planetary interiors that could contribute to mixing and angular momentum transport. Observational advances in helio- and astero-seismology have highlighted poor understanding of the mechanisms of chemical mixing and angular momentum transport in the stably-stratified radiation zones of the Sun and other stars. The project will involve a combination of linear analysis and numerical simulations to understand the properties of one or more of these instabilities, and to determine their nonlinear behaviour. This may involve simulations on high-performance computing facilities, such as the Advanced Research Computing facility at Leeds. The ultimate goal is to understand the nonlinear outcome of these instabilities and to provide simple parameterisations of their mixing and angular momentum transport properties that can be incorporated in stellar models. The project is based in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds, which hosts one of the leading groups in Astrophysical and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics.