Related papers: Marginal Stability of Sweet-Parker Type Current Sh…
The Sweet-Parker layer in a system that exceeds a critical value of the Lundquist number ($S$) is unstable to the plasmoid instability. In this paper, a numerical scaling study has been done with an island coalescing system driven by a low…
The scaling of plasmoid instability maximum linear growth rate with respect to Lundquist number $S$ in a Sweet-Parker current sheet, $\gamma_{max}\sim S^{1/4}$, indicates that at high $S$, the current sheet will break apart before it…
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…
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…
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…
Recently, secondary island formation due to the tearing instability of the Sweet-Parker current sheet was identified as a possible mechanism that can lead to fast reconnection (less sensitive dependence on Lundquist number $S$) both in…
Classical MHD reconnection theories, both the stationary Sweet-Parker model and the tearing instability, are known to provide rates which are too slow to explain the observations. However, a recent analysis has shown that there exists a…
We investigate analytically and numerically the semi-collisional regime of the plasmoid instability, defined by the inequality $\delta_{SP} \gg \rho_s \gg \delta_{in}$, where $\delta_{SP}$ is the width of a Sweet-Parker current sheet,…
A 2D linear theory of the instability of Sweet-Parker (SP) current sheets is developed in the framework of Reduced MHD. A local analysis is performed taking into account the dependence of a generic equilibrium profile on the outflow…
We investigate the development of tearing-mode instability using the highest-resolution two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of reconnecting current sheets performed on a uniform grid, for Lundquist numbers of $10^3 \le S \le 5…
Thin current sheets in systems of large size that exceed a critical value of the Lundquist number are unstable to a super-Alfvenic tearing instability. The scaling of the growth rate of the fastest growing instability with respect to the…
Sweet-Parker current sheets in high Lundquist number plasmas are unstable to tearing, suggesting they will not form in physical systems. Understanding magnetic reconnection thus requires study of the stability of a current sheet as it…
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…
It has been established that the Sweet-Parker current layer in high Lundquist number reconnection is unstable to the super-Alfv\'enic plasmoid instability. Past two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations have demonstrated that 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 $S^{3/8}…
Magnetic reconnection is thought to be the dynamical mechanism underlying many explosive phenomena observed both in space and in the laboratory, though the question of how fast magnetic reconnection is triggered in such high Lundquist ($S$)…
We study, by means of MHD simulations, the onset and evolution of fast reconnection via the "ideal" tearing mode within a collapsing current sheet at high Lundquist numbers ($S\gg10^4$). We first confirm that as the collapse proceeds, fast…
The recent realization that Sweet-Parker current sheets are violently unstable to the secondary tearing (plasmoid) instability implies that such current sheets cannot occur in real systems. This suggests that, in order to understand the…
In this study, a new linear theory of tearing instability is shown, where the modified LSC (Loureiro, Schekochihin, and Cowley) theory [36] developed from the original LSC theory [8] is extended from inviscid-resistive MHD to…
Classical Sweet-Parker models of reconnection predict that reconnection rates depend inversely on the resistivity, usually parameterized using the dimensionless Lundquist number ($\Lund$). We describe magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations…