HYDROMAGNETIC STABILITY OF A FINITE-PRESSURE AXISYMMETRIC ROTATING PLASMA.

The stability of a rotating plasma column in a longitudinal magnetic field is investigated by means of ideal single-fluid magnetohydrodynamics. The boundary-value problem is a self-adjoint problem for axisymmetric perturbations. The effect of a finite pressure on the stability of the system is studied when the initial radial plasma pressure and rotation frequency profiles are finite. At small values of OMEGA VM LS TH kc//A and c//s VM LS TH C//A, the plasma is stable if beta APP GRTH a **4 OMEGA **4/c**4//A, where a is the plasma radius, beta is the ratio of the plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure, c**A is the Alfven velocity, and c//s is the ion thermal velocity. If c//s VM GT TH a OMEGA , the rotating plasma is stable.