Abstract
Within a MHD approach we find magnetic reconnection to progress in two entirely different ways. The first is well known: the laminar Sweet-Parker process. But a second, completely different and chaotic reconnection process is possible. This regime has properties of immediate practical relevance: (i) it is much faster, developing on scales of the order of the Alfvén time, and (ii) the areas of reconnection become distributed chaotically over a macroscopic region. The onset of the faster process is the formation of closed-circulation patterns where the jets going out of the reconnection regions turn around and force their way back in, carrying along copious amounts of magnetic flux.
- Received 11 January 2008
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.235001
©2008 American Physical Society
Synopsis
Different routes for reconnection
Published 14 July 2008
Magnetic field lines in moving plasmas can break and reform, releasing large amounts of energy. Simulations suggest this happens in a two stage process—one slow and smooth, the other rapid and chaotic.
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