Magnetohydrodynamic clump instability

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Abstract
The theory of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) clump instability in current driven plasma is presented. MHD clump fluctuations are current carrying bundles of correlated magnetic field lines. The instability occurs when turbulent mixing of the mean current density at island overlap produces clumps at a rate faster than their decay as a result of magnetic field line stochasticity. The renormalized dynamical equation describing MHD clump instability is derived from one‐fluid MHD equations and conserves the dynamical invariants of the exact equations. The renormalized equation is a nonlinear, turbulent version of the Newcomb equation of linear MHD stability theory and can be cast into the form of a nonlinear MHD energy principle. MHD clump instability is a dynamical route to the Taylor state.