On stability and instability criteria for magnetohydrodynamics.

It is shown that for most, but not all, three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equilibria the second variation of the energy is indefinite. Thus the class of such equilibria whose stability might be determined by the so-called Arnold criterion is very restricted. The converse question, namely conditions under which MHD equilibria will be unstable is considered in this paper. The following sufficient condition for linear instability in the Eulerian representation is presented: The maximal real part of the spectrum of the MHD equations linearized about an equilibrium state is bounded from below by the growth rate of an operator defined by a system of local partial differential equations (PDE). This instability criterion is applied to the case of axisymmetric toroidal equilibria. Sufficient conditions for instability, stronger than those previously known, are obtained for rotating MHD. (c) 1995 American Institute of Physics.