Rigorous approach to the nonlinear saturation of the tearing mode in cylindrical and slab geometry

The saturation of the tearing mode instability is described within the standard framework of reduced magnetohydrodynamics in the case of an r-dependent or uniform resistivity profile. Using the technique of matched asymptotic expansions, where the perturbation parameter is the island width w, the problem can be solved in two ways: with the so-called flux coordinate method, which is based on the fact that the current profile is a flux function, and with a new perturbative method that does not use this property. The latter is applicable to more general situations where an external forcing or a sheared velocity profile are involved. The calculation provides a new relationship between the saturated island width and the Delta(') stability parameter that involves a ln w/w(0) term, where w(0) is a nonlinear scaling length that was missing in previous work. It also yields the modification of the equilibrium magnetic-flux function. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.