In this paper we study a longitudinal coherent bunch instability in which the growth time is comparable to or less than the period of synchrotron oscillations. Both longitudinal and transverse bunch instabilities have been studied. In most treatments, however, the coherent force is assumed to be small and is treated as a perturbation compared with the synchrotron force. This makes the problem simpler because an individual synchrotron mode is decoupled. As bunch current increases, the coherent force is no longer small and the mode frequency shift becomes significant compared with the synchrotron frequency. Therefore in this case it is necessary to include coupling of the synchrotron modes. Recently a fast blow-up instability which comes from mode coupling was studied. Their method is to derive a dispersion relation for a bunched beam using the Vlasov equation and to analyze it as in a coasting beam. They showed that if mode coupling is included the Vlasov equation predicts a fast microwave instability with a stability condition similar to that for a coasting beam. In this paper we will partly follow their method and present a formalism which includes coupling between higher-order radial modes as well as coupling between synchrotron modes. The formalismmore » is considered to be generalization of the Sacherer formalism without mode coupling. This theory predicts that instability is induced not only by coupling between different synchrotron modes, but also by coupling between positive and negative modes, since negative synchrotron modes are included in the theory in a natural manner. This formalism is to be used for a Gaussian bunch and a parabolic bunch, and is also useful for transverse problems.« less