The Evolution of Growth Rate and Eigenfunction in a Cylindrical Plasma Column

Abstract

The evolution of growth rate and eigenfunction of kink instability in a cylindrical plasma column with different plasma pressure is studied by a semi-analytical method. The method can transform magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations into a second-order ordinary differential equation. Growth rate can be obtained by solving the second-order ordinary differential equation. 2-D radial eigenfunction can be calculated with a fixed growth rate. The significant change of growth rate and eigenfunction indicates inhomogeneous plasma pressure P0 is destructive for kink instability. The advantage of our method is that it can divide problem into two parts and then solve them separately.