Magnetically driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability with acceleration gradient

We investigate the stability properties of a slab of accelerating, current-carrying, cold, fluid when the accelerating J_ /spl times/ B_ force is nonuniform throughout the slab and leads to a gradient in the slab acceleration. A nonuniform force that squeezes (stretches) the slab while accelerating it increases (decreases) the Magnetic-Rayleigh-Taylor instability growth rate. This effect can explain recent experiments on thin, magnetically driven, imploding liner shells.