Stratified Resistive Tearing Instability

Abstract

Resistive tearing instabilities are common in fluids that are highly electrically conductive and carry strong currents. We determine the effect of stable stratification on the tearing instability under the Boussinesq approximation. Our results generalise previous work that considered only specific parameter regimes, and we show that the length scale of the fastest growing mode depends non-monotonically on the stratification strength. We confirm our analytical results by solving the linearised equations numerically, and we discuss whether the instability could operate in the solar tachocline.