Rayleigh‐Taylor instability in the presence of a stratified shear layer

A nonlocal theory of the Rayleigh‐Taylor instability, which includes the effect of a transverse velocity shear, is presented. A two‐fluid model is used to describe an inhomogeneous plasma under the influence of gravity and sheared equilibrium flow velocity and to derive a differential equation describing the generalized Rayleigh‐Taylor instability. An extensive parametric study is made in the collisionless and collisional regimes, and the corresponding dispersion curves are presented. The results are applied to the equatorial F region and to barium releases in the ionosphere.