Resistive instabilities in general toroidal plasma configurations

Abstract

Previous work by Johnson and Greene on resistive instabilities is extended to finite-pressure configurations. The Mercier criterion for the stability of the ideal magnetohydrodynamic interchange mode is rederived, the generalization of the earlier stability criterion for the resistive interchange mode is obtained, and a relation between the two is noted. Conditions for tearing mode instability are recovered with the growth rate scaling with the resistivity in a more complicated manner than η3/5. Nyquist techniques are used to show that favorable average curvature can convert the tearing mode into an overstable mode and can often stabilize it.