(The) effects of diamagnetic drift on the resistive ballooning mode

Abstract

The linearized reduced resistive MHD equations, including diamagnetic drifts and ion polarization as well as compressibility, are solved analytically in a low beta, large aspect ratio, axisymmetric, circular surface toroidal plasma to obtain a dispersion relation for the resistive ballooning mode. The calculation is limited to values of beta below the threshold for the ideal ballooning mode. It is shown, under some approximation, that the drift term gives a strong stabilizing effect for the positive real frequency branch and a destabilizing effect for the drift type branch, while ion polarization is neglected in our collisional ordering.