The universal instability in general geometry

Abstract: The "universal" instability has recently been revived by Landreman, Antonsen and Dorland [1], who showed that it indeed exists in plasma geometries with straight (but sheared) magnetic field lines. Here it is demonstrated analytically that this instability can be present in more general sheared and toroidal geometries. In a torus, the universal instability is shown to be closely related to the trapped-electron mode, although the trapped-electron drive is usually dominant. However, this drive can be weakened or eliminated, as in the case in stellarators with the maximum-$J$ property, leaving the parallel Landau resonance to drive a residual mode, which is identified as the universal instability.