Magnetic Curvature Drift Instability

Phys. Fluids 29, 3672 (1986)https://ireap.umd.edu/10.1063/1.8657991986Journal ArticlePlasma, Accelerator, and Nuclear Physics

The semicollisional tearing mode is found to be strongly destabilized by electron temperature gradient in the presence of curvature or cross‐field transport of particles or heat. The mode is unstable over a very wide range of parameters for reversed field pinches or spheromaks and appears to be more likely to explain anomalous transport than resistive interchanges. The mode is not so strongly unstable in tokamaks, because of their long shear length, but can be destabilized in a limited range by toroidal effects, principally Pfirsch–Schlüter transport.