Neoclassical magnetic microislands in tokamaks

Possibility of existence of neoclassical magnetic microislands (island width smaller than the ion Larmor radius) in a tokamak in the banana regime is shown. The rotation frequency of such islands is found. It is shown that for the case of positive electron temperature gradient, the bootstrap current destabilizes the microislands while the polarization current leads to their stabilization. Maximally possible neoclassical microisland width is estimated. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.