We demonstrate that in a chiral plasma subject to an external magnetic field, the chiral vortical effect can induce a new type of magnetohydrodynamic instability which we refer to as the { \it chiral magnetovortical instability}. This instability arises from the mutual evolution of the magnetic and vortical fields. It can cause a rapid amplification of the magnetic fields by transferring the chirality of the constituent particles to the cross helicity of the plasma.
Categories: nucl-th astro-ph.HE hep-ph physics.flu-dyn physics.plasm-ph