Stationary shocks and toroidal diffusion

For a resistive plasma of stellarator or low-temperature tokamak type, the quasistationary equilibrium is rotating at the reduced sound speed Bθνth/Bz, and has a slow (acoustic branch) shock fixed in space. Dissipation in the shock can increase plasma loss by an order of magnitude over the Pfirsch-Schlüter rate. For a very weak shock, the loss rate scales with the resistivity as η4/3; for a stronger (but still weak) shock, it scales as η3/2 . On the diffusion time scale, flow along the lines of force must develop.