We show by means of a perturbative weakly nonlinear analysis that the axisymmetric magnetorotational instability (MRI) of a viscous, resistive, incompressible rotating shear flow subject to a background vertical magnetic field in a thin channel gives rise to a Ginzburg-Landau equation for the disturbance amplitude. For small magnetic Prandtl number (${\mathcal{P}}_m$), the saturation amplitude is $\propto \sqrt{{\mathcal{P}}_m}$ and the resulting momentum transport scales as ${\mathcal{R}}^{-1}$, where $\mathcal{R}$ is the hydrodynamic Reynolds number. Simplifying assumptions, such as linear shear base flow, mathematically expedient boundary conditions, and continuous spectrum of the vertical linear modes, are used to facilitate this analysis. The asymptotic results are shown to comply with numerical calculations using a spectral code. They suggest that the transport due to the nonlinearly developed MRI may be very small in experimental setups with ${\mathcal{P}}_m\ll 1$.

• Received 17 May 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034501