Curvature-driven instabilities in a hot electron plasma: Radial analysis

Abstract

The theory of curvature-driven instabilities is developed for a plasma interacting with a hot electron ring whose drift frequencies are larger than the growth rates predicted from conventional magnetohydrodynamic theory. A z-pinch model is used to emphasize the radial structure of the problem. Stability criteria are obtained for the five possible modes of instability: the conventional hot electron interchange, a high-frequency hot electron interchange (at frequencies larger than the ion cyclotron frequency), a compressional instability, a background pressure-driven interchange, and an interacting pressure-driven interchange. Numerical plots of the marginal stability boundaries are presented for parameter values corresponding to the EBT-S and EBT-P bumpy torus experiments.