Magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium and stability of rotating plasmas in a mirror geometry

A systematic study of equilibrium and stability of rotating plasmas in a mirror geometry is presented. At supersonic azimuthal rotation velocities, centrifugal forces lead to equilibria with nearly detached plasmas, where the plasma mass concentrates at the mirror center. However, isolation of the plasma from the ends is not complete due to high parallel thermal conduction. Temperature remains a flux function, connecting the centrifugally confined region to the end points. Rotation shear is found to be strongly stabilizing for the interchange (flute) modes, as demonstrated in earlier works. However, all configurations studied to date with various rotation profiles are found to be linearly unstable to other ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) modes. Thus, it is unlikely that these centrifugally detached states can be accessed within ideal MHD.