Ballooning Δ’ in the second stable region

The stability of resistive ballooning modes in the second ideal stability region is an important issue that has recently received much attention. In this paper it is shown that the ballooning Δ’ is negative, and therefore that the Δ’‐driven modes are stable, throughout most of the second region. These results are compared with those of Kim and Choi [Phys. Fluids B 1, 1444 (1989)].