Different responses of the Rayleigh-Taylor type and resistive drift wave instabilities to the velocity shear

TL;DR

This paper investigates how velocity shear differently affects Rayleigh-Taylor, interchange, and resistive drift wave instabilities, showing significant suppression of the former two but minimal impact on the latter.

Contribution

It reveals the distinct responses of different plasma instabilities to velocity shear, highlighting the physical mechanisms behind their stability behavior.

Findings

Velocity shear significantly suppresses Rayleigh-Taylor and interchange instabilities.

Resistive drift wave instability is weakly affected by velocity shear.

Large velocity shear can eliminate eigenmode solutions for resistive drift waves.

Abstract

The effects of velocity shear on the unstable modes driven by the effective gravity (Rayleigh-Taylor and interchange) and resistive drift wave instabilities for inhomogeneous equilibrium fluid/plasma density are analyzed for the localized eigenmode problems. It is shown that the effect of the velocity shear drastically depends on the type of instability. Whereas the velocity shear can significantly suppress both Rayleigh-Taylor and interchange instabilities, it has only a week impact on the growth rate of the resistive drift wave. This is directly related to the physical nature of these instabilities. For the Rayleigh-Taylor and interchange instabilities, the shear flow tilts the eddies of the stream functions, while for the resistive drift wave instability the shear flow simply shifts the eddies in the radial direction with no tilting. However, for large velocity shear, the eigenmode solutions for resistive drift waves cease to exist.