Neoclassical viscosity effects on resistive magnetohydrodynamic modes in toroidal geometry

Abstract

The flux-surface-averaged linearized resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) boundary-layer equations including the compressibility, diamagnetic drift, and neoclassical viscosity terms are derived in toroidal geometry. These equations describe the resistive layer dynamics of resistive MHD modes over the collisionality regime between the banana plateau and the Pfirsch–Schlüter. From the resulting equations, the effects of neoclassical viscosity on the stability of the tearing and resistive ballooning modes are investigated numerically. Also, a study is given for the problem of how the neoclassical resistive MHD mode is generated as the collisionality is reduced. It is shown that the neoclassical viscosity terms give a significant destabilizing effect for the tearing and resistive ballooning modes. This destabilization comes mainly from the reduction of the stabilizing effect of the parallel ion sound compression by the ion neoclassical viscosity. In the banana-plateau collisionality limit, where the compressibility is negligible, the dispersion relations of the tearing and resistive ballooning modes reduce to the same form, with the threshold value of the driving force given by Δc=0. On the other hand, with the finite neoclassical effect it is found that the neoclassical resistive MHD instability is generated in agreement with previous results. Furthermore, it is shown that this later instability can be generated in a wide range of the collisionality including near the Pfirsch–Schlüter regime as well as the banana-plateau regime, suggesting that this mode is a probable cause of anomalous transport.