In this work, new scaling laws of the time growth rate γ of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability with
the plasma resistivity η, kinematic viscosity ν, and electron number density ne are derived. A
viscosity scale is defined in terms of the time decay of the perturbative fluid flow
perpendicular to the equilibrium magnetic field, at the quasi-static approximation. Such a
scale provides the identification of a viscous layer that can be combined with the resistive
layer to produce a viscous-resistive layer. The latter, in turn, is found to satisfy an algebraic …