MHD thermal instabilities in cool inhomogeneous atmospheres

In principle, a corona (i.e. low-density and high-temperature plasma) may be thought of as a metastable configuration evolved from a cool equilibrium due to some instability in which magnetic fields and currents play a basic role. However, the existing linear instability analysis employed a number of simplifying approximations; one of these, namely the spatial uniformity of plasma parameters and concomitant infinite extension of magnetic structures, is relaxed in the present work. (Auth.)