Finite system size effects on Drift Wave stability

Abstract

Unstable electrostatic resistive modes, driven by density gradients, are identified in a bounded sheared slab. The boundary conditions play a crucial role and are shown to change the nature of the problem, which is related to so called "universal" mode. The dispersion relation and the structure of the eigenmodes of the instability are derived and are shown to depend on a limited set of dimensionless parameters. The occurrence and possible impact of these modes on numerical simulations and actual plasmas are discussed.