A more complete non-perturbative magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)-kinetic hybrid formulation is developed by including the perturbed electrostatic potential δφ in the particle Lagrangian. The fluid-like counter-parts of the hybrid equations, in the Chew-Goldberger-Low high-frequency limit, are also derived and utilized to test the new toroidal implementation in the MARS-K code. Application of the updated non-perturbative hybrid model for a high-β spherical tokamak plasma in MAST finds that the perturbed electrostatic potential generally plays a minor role in the n = 1 (n is the toroidal mode number) resistive wall mode instability. The effect of δφ is largely destabilizing, with the growth rate of the instability increased by several (up to 20) percent as compared to the case without including δφ. A similar relative change is also obtained for the kinetic-induced resonant field amplification effect at high-β in the MAST plasma considered. The updated capability of the MARS-K code allows quantitative exploration of drift kinetic effects on various MHD instabilities and the antenna-driven plasma response where the electrostatic perturbation, coupled to magnetic perturbations, may play important roles.
This paper develops a new model to study the effect of electrostatic perturbations on the resistive wall mode instability in high-beta spherical tokamak plasmas. The results show that the electrostatic potential generally has a minor but destabilizing effect, increasing the growth rate of the instability by up to 20%. This updated capability allows for better exploration of drift kinetic effects on various MHD instabilities and plasma responses.