Instability of the quiescent state of an ideal conducting medium in a magnetic field

The linear stability of the quiescent states of an ideal compressible medium with infinite conductivity in a magnetic field is studied. It is shown by Lyapunov’s direct method that these quiescent states are unstable relative to small spatial perturbations, which decrease the potential energy (the sum of the internal energy of the medium and the energy of the magnetic field in this case). Two-sided exponential estimates of perturbation growth are obtained; the exponents in these estimates are calculated using the parameters of the quiescent states and the initial data for perturbations. A class of the most rapidly growing perturbations is separated and an exact formula to determine the rate of their increase is derived. An example is constructed of the quiescent states and the initial perturbations whose linear stage of evolution in time occurs in correspondence with the estimates. From the mathematical viewpoint, our results are preliminary, because the existence theorems for the solutions of the problems considered are not proved.