2-DIMENSIONAL ASPECTS OF TOROIDAL DRIFT WAVES IN THE BALLOONING REPRESENTATION

By systematically doing the higher-order theory, the predictions of the conventional ballooning theory (CBT) are examined for nonideal systems. For the complex solvability condition to be satisfied, radial variation of the lowest-order mode amplitude needs to be invoked. It turns out, however, that even this procedure with its concomitant modifications of eigenvalues and eigenstructures, is not sufficient to justify the predictions of many CBT solutions; only a small set of the CBT solutions could be put on firm footing. To demonstrate this work's general conclusions, theoretical and numerical results are presented for a system of fluid drift waves with nonadiabatic electron response.