Collisionless internal kinks

The paper presents an investigation of internal kink modes in high temperature plasmas. The relevant dynamics within the mode resonant layer is described by the collisionless kinetic equations. The approach covers a wide range of plasma parameters and, in particular, applies to situations in which the ion gyroradius is comparable to the resonant layer width and the temperature gradient scales are comparable to the density gradient scale. Several dispersion relations applicable to different plasma parameter regimes are derived. (author)