Onset of the Sawtooth Crash

Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 3259 (1993)https://ireap.umd.edu/10.1103/PhysRevLett.70.32591993Journal ArticleComplex and Emergent Systems

A new class of m=1 magnetic islands is presented. These islands have bounded current-density distributions, so that their resistive evolution is slow. Conservation of the total magnetic flux, however, results in a critical width such that the current density diverges and the separatrix collapses at the X point.