Pinch instability of a cylindrical couette flow in a nonuniform axial magnetic field

The paper addresses the linear stability to axisymmetric perturbations of an incompressible nonideal fluid between two rotating coaxial infinitely long cylinders in a nonuniform axial magnetic field. For conducting cylinders, the results for uniform and nonuniform magnetic fields are qualitatively identical. This is also observed for nonconducting cylinders in a magnetic field with a constant direction. Instability appears for nonconducting cylinders in a magnetic field with a varying direction, whose magnitude exceeds a certain critical value. This new instability also exists in the absence of rotation and, hence, is independent of its parameters. In addition, the critical magnetic field is independent of the magnetic Prandtl number, which facilitates experimental observation of the new instability.