Double-diffusive magnetorotational instability of super-rotation under the influence of azimuthal magnetic fields

It is demonstrated that the Azimuthal MagnetoRotational Instability (AMRI) also works with super-rotation contrary to the standard MRI for axial fields which requires negative shear. The stability against nonaxisymmetric perturbations of a conducting Taylor-Couette flow with positive shear under the influence of a toroidal magnetic field is considered which can indeed be unstable even if the field between the cylinders is current-free. This phenomenon is identified as a double-diffusive instability which only works for small or large magnetic Prandtl number Pm. For all Pm the unstable combinations of rotation and field lead to magnetic Mach numbers below unity. For small Pm the curves of marginal instability in the Hartmann/Reynolds number plane do not differ for differing Pm. For models with resting inner cylinder it is demonstrated that experiments to realize this form of AMRI with liquid sodium need axial electric currents of about 33 kAmp flowing inside the inner cylinder at r=0.8, independent of the global scales of the container. Moreover, the instability of the super-rotation with not too small Reynolds number is only weakly influenced by the radial profile of the field. The lines of marginal instability are very similar for the fields with the profiles between B~1/R ("current-free") and B~R ("z-pinch").