Related papers: Non-linear Tearing of 3D Null Point Current Sheets
Magnetic reconnection processes in the near-Earth magnetotail can be highly 3-dimensional (3D) in geometry and dynamics, even though the magnetotail configuration itself is nearly two dimensional due to the symmetry in the dusk-dawn…
A detailed numerical study of magnetic reconnection in resistive MHD for very large, previously inaccessible, Lundquist numbers ($10^4\le S\le 10^8$) is reported. Large-aspect-ratio Sweet-Parker current sheets are shown to be unstable to…
In this paper we study the scaling relations for the triggering of the fast, or "ideal", tearing instability starting from equilibrium configurations relevant to astrophysical as well as laboratory plasmas that differ from the simple Harris…
Our understanding of magnetic reconnection in resistive magnetohydrodynamics has gone through a fundamental change in recent years. The conventional wisdom is that magnetic reconnection mediated by resistivity is slow in laminar high…
Magnetic reconnection, a fundamentally important process in many aspects of astrophysics, is believed to be initiated by the tearing instability of an electric current sheet, a region where magnetic field abruptly changes direction and…
Magnetic reconnection can develop spontaneously via the tearing instability, often invoked to explain disruptive instabilities in fusion devices, solar flares, the generation of periodic density disturbances at the tip of helmet streamers,…
Magnetic field fluctuations in MHD turbulence can be viewed as current sheets that are progressively more anisotropic at smaller scales. As suggested by Loureiro & Boldyrev (2017) and Mallet et al (2017), below a certain critical thickness…
In this paper we present a two-dimensional, time dependent, numerical simulation of a reconnection current layer in incompressible resistive magnetohydrodynamics with uniform resistivity in the limit of very large Lundquist numbers. We use…
We present the first results of three-dimensional (3D) numerical magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the onset of magnetic reconnection via the tearing instability in dynamically thinning current sheets in the solar corona. In all our…
We present 2D and 3D Particle-in-Cell simulations of driven collisionless magnetic reconnection triggered by the compression and merger of two Lundquist-type force-free flux tubes in a strongly magnetized pair plasma, with a focus on…
Null collapse is an implosive process whereby MHD waves focus their energy in the vicinity of a null point, forming a current sheet and initiating magnetic reconnection. We consider, for the first time, the case of collapsing 3D magnetic…
The plasmoid instability has revolutionized our understanding of magnetic reconnection in astrophysical environments. By preventing the formation of highly elongated reconnection layers, it is crucial in enabling the rapid energy conversion…
Magnetohydrodynamic simulations have shown that a non-unique critical Lundquist number $S_c$ exists, hovering around $S_c \sim 10^4$, above which threshold Sweet-Parker type stationary reconnecting configurations become unstable to a fast…
Context: The majority of studies on stressed 3D magnetic null points consider magnetic reconnection driven by an external perturbation, but the formation of a genuine current sheet equilibrium remains poorly understood. This problem has…
Magnetic reconnection can explosively release magnetic energy when opposing magnetic fields merge and annihilate through a current sheet, driving plasma jets and accelerating non-thermal particle populations to high energy, in plasmas…
We conduct a multiparametric study of driven magnetic reconnection relevant to recent experiments on colliding magnetized laser produced plasmas using particle-in-cell simulations. Varying the background plasma density, plasma resistivity,…
Combined tearing-thermal evolution plays an important role in the disruption of current sheets, and formation of cool condensations within the solar atmosphere. However, this has received limited attention to date. We numerically explore a…
Current sheets formed in magnetic reconnection events are found to be unstable to high-wavenumber perturbations. The instability is very fast: its maximum growth rate scales as S^{1/4} v_A/L, where L is the length of the sheet, v_A the…
The plasmoid instability in visco-resistive current sheets is analyzed in both the linear and nonlinear regimes. The linear growth rate and the wavenumber are found to scale as $S^{1/4} {\left( {1 + {P_m}} \right)}^{-5/8}$ and $S^{3/8}…
We report here, for the first time, an observed instability of a Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) nature occurring in a fully three-dimensional (3D) current-vortex sheet at the fan plane of a 3D magnetic null point. The current-vortex layer forms…