Interface localized instabilities in resistive magnetohydrodynamics

Modes localized at a plasma–vacuum interface are studied in plane slab equilibria by using resistive magnetohydrodynamics. Such modes are unstable whenever the current density and the magnetic field are not perpendicular to each other in the interface. The perturbations have no radial nodes but large mode numbers in the other two directions. The instability occurs for a wide range of angles between the nodal lines and the magnetic field lines in the interface and does not depend on the presence of a mode resonant surface.