Hyper-resistivity Theory in a Cylindrical Plasma

A model is presented for determining the hyper-resistivity coefficient that arises due to the presence of magnetic structures that appear in plasma configurations such as the reversed field pinch and spheromak. Emphasis is placed on modeling cases where magnetic islands pass from non-overlap to overlap regimes. Earlier works have shown that a diffusion-based model can give realistic transport scalings when magnetic islands are isolated, and this formalism is extended to apply to the hyper-resistivity problem. In this case electrons may either be in long or short mean-free-path regimes and intuitively-based arguments are presented of how to extend previous theories to incorporate this feature in the presence of magnetic structures that pass from laminar to moderately chaotic regimes.