Flute instabilities driven by the radial equilibrium flow in a collisional weakly magnetized plasma column

A two-fluid model developed by Aggarwal et al. [J. Plasma Phys. 89, 905890310 (2023)] to study the stability of centrifugal flute modes in a weakly magnetized plasma column is extended to include the impact of the ionization source and the ion–neutral friction force within the ion momentum equation. The model is radially global and applicable for arbitrary perturbation frequency. The dispersion relation takes the form of a third-order differential equation that is solved numerically. The incorporation of an ionization source and friction leads to a finite ion radial equilibrium flow, which brings in an additional drive for instabilities, the other driving factor being the difference between the electron and ion azimuthal flows. The instability mechanisms are discussed, followed by an exploration of the parametric dependencies regarding the growth rate and frequency of the instability. The relative effect of inertia, ionization source, and neutral collisions on the stability of a weakly magnetized plasma column is analyzed. Finally, the model is applied to compute the linear stability of experimentally observed plasmas in the linear plasma column MISTRAL.