plasma instabilities

Plasma instabilities are disruptions in ionized gas that cause it to deviate from equilibrium.

In physics and engineering, plasmas can develop unpredictable behaviors—waves, turbulence, or structural breakdowns—when electromagnetic forces, temperature gradients, or particle densities become unbalanced.

These instabilities pose major challenges in fusion reactor design, where containing superheated plasma requires suppressing such disruptions: The tokamak experienced plasma instabilities that terminated the experiment.