ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the instability of external kink modes due to wall resistivity. The initial analytical theory of the resistive-wall mode instability was restricted by the cylindrical approximation. The chapter presents the theory of resistive-wall mode instability in cylindrical plasma. It shows that such instability is possible in conditions when the ideal external kink modes are stable. The chapter discusses the growth rate and the instability condition for a general radial distribution of the longitudinal current and illustrates them for the examples of the stepped and parabolic distributions of the current. The model equations for the poloidal harmonics and the general formulae for the growth rate allow one to perform relatively simple numerical calculations on the problem of the resistive-wall mode instability in toroidal geometry. It was shown that the main effect resulting in the instability is the non-local interaction of the main harmonic of perturbation with the singular side-band harmonics.
