Keep the background magnetic field, thermal gradient and wavevector fixed as . In particular, is nonzero and of order one. Put and . Multiplying the nonzero-frequency dispersion relation by gives
that is,
The sum and product of its two roots are
For large rotation, the sum is of order while the product is independent of . The quadratic therefore has one large root and one small root. More explicitly,
The fast frequencies are consequently
which are inertial waves at leading order. For nonzero away from the zero-frequency boundary, the rapid-rotation slow magneto-Coriolis branch has
Its frequency is of order , much smaller than the fast inertial wave frequency. Coriolis force balances most of the magnetic and buoyant forces in this slow motion, with inertia supplying only a small correction.
For , the slow wave has real nonzero frequency when
Stable thermal stratification has and automatically satisfies this condition. With adverse stratification, , sufficiently strong magnetic tension along the wavevector is needed. If the inequality is reversed, and the slow branch has imaginary frequencies, including an exponentially growing mode. Equality gives a stationary limit, rather than a nonzero oscillation. If , the proposed slow wave degenerates into zero-frequency disturbances: there is no magnetic restoring coupling. The remaining nonzero branch has . These qualifications also explain why zero roots introduced by clearing denominators must not be interpreted as ordinary propagating waves.