In retrospect it appears the Riggatron concept likely would not have worked, due to the various plasma instabilities that were only being discovered coincident with its design process.

A diocotron instability is a plasma instability created by two sheets of charge slipping past each other.

Many plasma instabilities arise near strong current sheets, which are prone to collapse, causing magnetic reconnection and rapidly releasing the stored energy.

A smaller and lighter fusion reactor might be possible in the future when more sophisticated methods have been devised to control magnetic confinement and prevent plasma instabilities.

The temperature and density profiles, and plasma current distributions, would potentially eliminate deleterious plasma instabilities.

Current carrying double layers may be generated by current-driven plasma instabilities which amplify variations of the plasma density.

Lyman Spitzer considered this fraction as a factor related to plasma instability.

The ballooning instability, or ballooning mode, is a form of plasma instability seen in tokamak fusion power reactors.

As it develops at fixed areas in the plasma, kinks belong to the class of "absolute plasma instabilities", as opposed to convective processes.

"Jake, we have plasma instability," Sam announced.