Visco-resistive MHD study of internal kink (m = 1) modes

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of sheared equilibrium flows on the m = 1, n = 1 resistive internal kink mode in the framework of a reduced magnetohydrodynamic model in a periodic cylindrical geometry. Our numerical studies show that there is a significant change of the scaling dependence of the mode growth rate in the Lundquist number in the presence of axial flows compared to the no flow case. Poloidal flows do not influence the scaling. We have further found that viscosity strongly modifies the effect of flows on the (1,1) mode both in the linear and nonlinear regimes. Axial flows increase the linear growth rate for low viscosity values, but they decrease the linear growth rate for higher viscosity values. In the case of poloidal flows, the linear growth rate decreases in all cases. Additionally at higher viscosity, we have found strong symmetry breaking in the behaviour of linear growth rates and in the nonlinear saturation levels of the modes as a function of the helicities of the flows. For axial, poloidal, and most helical flow cases, there is flow induced stabilisation of the nonlinear saturation level in the high viscosity regime and destabilisation in the low viscosity regime.