On the linear stability of collisionless microtearing modes

Abstract

Microtearing modes are an important drive of turbulent heat transport in present-day fusion plasmas. We investigate their linear stability under very-low collisionality regimes, expected for the next generations of devices, using gyrokinetic and drift-kinetic approaches. At odds with current opinion, we show that collisionless microtearing instabilities may occur in certain experimental conditions, particularly relevant for such devices as reversed field pinches and spherical tokamaks.