Nonequilibrium Stability of Resistive Magnetohydrodynamic Pinches

The classical method of determining the stability of MHD equilibria is generalized to the case of an electrically resistive and thermally conductive imploding dynamic pinch so that the onset and linear behavior of three-dimensional nonequilibrium instabilities can be studied. Dynamically induced Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities are shown to appear in a cylindrically symmetric theta pinch at just those times as are given by theory and experiment, and with the correct growth rate.