English

Magnetohydrodynamic structure of a plasmoid in fast reconnection in low-beta plasmas

Space Physics 2014-10-14 v4 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Plasma Physics

Abstract

Plasmoid structures in fast reconnection in low-beta plasmas are investigated by two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations. A high-resolution shock-capturing code enables us to explore a variety of shock structures: vertical slow shocks behind the plasmoid, another slow shocks in the outer-region, and the shock-reflection in the front side. The Kelvin-Helmholtz-like turbulence is also found inside the plasmoid. It is concluded that these shocks are rigorous features in reconnection in low-beta plasmas, where the reconnection jet speed or the upstream Alfven speed exceeds the sound speed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1101.2255,
  title  = {Magnetohydrodynamic structure of a plasmoid in fast reconnection in low-beta plasmas},
  author = {Seiji Zenitani and Takahiro Miyoshi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1101.2255},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

25 pages, 7 figures, 1 tables; fortran 90 codes attached as ancillary files; see "Other formats" link; the publisher's version contains multimedia files