Magnetocentrifugal Winds in Three Dimensions: A Nonaxisymmetric Steady State

Outflows can be loaded and accelerated to high speeds along rapidly rotating, open magnetic field lines by centrifugal forces. Whether such magnetocentrifugally driven winds are stable is a long-standing theoretical problem. As a step toward addressing this problem, we perform the first large-scale 3D MHD simulations that extend to a distance ~10² times beyond the launching region, starting from steady 2D (axisymmetric) solutions. In an attempt to drive the wind unstable, we increase the mass loading on one half of the launching surface by a factor of and reduce it by the same factor on the other half. The evolution of the perturbed wind is followed numerically. We find no evidence for any rapidly growing instability that could disrupt the wind during the launching and initial phase of propagation, even when the magnetic field of the magnetocentrifugal wind is toroidally dominated all the way to the launching surface. The strongly perturbed wind settles into a new steady state, with a highly asymmetric mass distribution. The distribution of magnetic field strength is, in contrast, much more symmetric. We discuss possible reasons for the apparent stability, including stabilization by an axial poloidal magnetic field, which is required to bend field lines away from the vertical direction and produce a magnetocentrifugal wind in the first place.