Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-advanced-fluid-dynamics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/1/c/solution

In ideal magnetohydrodynamics, the first-order electric field is . Retaining its product with both the background and first-order magnetic field gives the Poynting vector
The first term is transverse and oscillatory, with zero period average. The second is quadratic and transports wave energy. A potential quadratic ideal electric-field term vanishes here because the real traveling-wave fields are parallel or antiparallel.
For the branch, , so
For the opposite branch, its sign reverses. The averaged Poynting flux is the total wave energy density, including equal kinetic and magnetic shares, multiplied by the group velocity. This agrees with Alfvén wave energy transport. Although the flux in this expression is electromagnetic, it supplies the transport of both components of the coupled fluid-field wave.

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