Toroidicity and shape dependence of peeling mode growth rates in axisymmetric toroidal plasmas

The growth rate of the peeling mode instability with large toroidal mode number is calculated for general axisymmetric toroidal plasmas, including tokamaks and the spherical torus (ST) equilibia by using formalism presented by Connor et al. Analytic equilibia with non-zero edge current density and quasi-uniform current profiles are assumed. It is found that in sharp D-shape tokamak plasma, the derivative of the safety factor with respect to the poloidal flux becomes very large, making the perturbed poloidal motion very large, in turn making a significant reduction of the growth rate of the peeling mode, similar to the X-point effect in diverted plasma. The large aspect ratio effect is also studied, which reduces the growth rate further. (physics of gases, plasmas, and electric discharges)