Related papers: Strongly localized magnetic reconnection by the su…
Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of collisionless magnetic reconnection are performed to study asymmetric reconnection in which an outflow is blocked by a hard wall while leaving sufficiently large room for the outflow of the opposite…
Magnetic reconnection with asymmetry in the outflow direction occurs in the Earth's magnetotail, coronal mass ejections, flux cancellation events, astrophysical disks, spheromak merging experiments, and elsewhere in nature and the…
We discuss the model of magnetic field reconnection in the presence of turbulence introduced by us approximately ten years ago. The model does not require any plasma effects to be involved in order to make the reconnection fast. In fact, it…
Reconnection is the process by which magnetic fields in a conducting fluid change their topology. This process is essential for understanding a wide variety of astrophysical processes, including stellar and galactic dynamos and…
The axisymmetric 3-D MHD outflow of a cold plasma from a magnetized and rotating astrophysical object is numerically simulated with the purpose of investigating the outflow's magnetocentrifugal acceleration and eventual collimation. Gravity…
Magnetic reconnection provides the primary source for explosive energy release, plasma heating and particle acceleration in many astrophysical environments. The last years witnessed a revival of interest in the MHD tearing instability as a…
The current understanding of MHD turbulence envisions turbulent eddies which are anisotropic in all three directions. In the plane perpendicular to the local mean magnetic field, this implies that such eddies become current-sheet-like…
Magnetic reconnection is a process whereby magnetic field lines in different directions "reconnect" with each other, resulting in the rearrangement of magnetic field topology together with the conversion of magnetic field energy into the…
The linear and nonlinear evolution of magnetic reconnection in collisionless high-temperature plasmas with a strong guide field is analyzed on the basis of a two-dimensional gyrofluid model. The linear growth rate of the reconnecting…
A unified linear theory that includes forced reconnection as a particular case of Alfv\'en resonance is presented. We consider a generalized Taylor problem in which a sheared magnetic field is subject to a time-dependent boundary…
Magnetic reconnection is a leading mechanism for magnetic energy conversion and high-energy non-thermal particle production in a variety of high-energy astrophysical objects, including ones with relativistic ion-electron plasmas (e.g.,…
During magnetically dominated relativistic reconnection, inflowing plasma depletes the initial relativistic pressure at the x-line and collisionless plasma heating inside the diffusion region is insufficient to overcome this loss. The…
Reconnection of the magnetic lines of force is considered in case the magnetic energy exceeds the rest energy of the matter. It is shown that the classical Sweet-Parker and Petschek models are generalized straightforwardly to this case and…
To systematically stress a rotationally symmetric 3D magnetic null point by advecting the opposite footpoints of the spine axis in opposite directions. This stress eventually concentrates in the vicinity of the null point forming a local…
Recently, it has been realized that magnetic plasma turbulence and magnetic field reconnection are inherently related phenomena. Turbulent fluctuations generate regions of a sheared magnetic field that become unstable to the tearing…
One of the main questions in magnetic reconnection is the origin of triggering behavior with on/off properties that accounts, once it is activated, for the fast magnetic energy conversion to kinetic and thermal energies at the heart of…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process associated with conversion of the embedded magnetic field energy into kinetic and thermal plasma energy, via bulk acceleration and Ohmic dissipation. In many high-energy astrophysical…
The physical origin of 'anomalous' resistivity in magnetic reconnection remains one of the longest-standing problems in space plasma physics. While the empirical Bohm diffusion scaling ($\eta \propto T/B$) is widely invoked to explain fast…
Results from 2.5D and 3D studies of the onset and development of the tearing instability are presented, using high fidelity resistive MHD simulations. A limited parameter study of the strength of the reconnecting field (or shear angle) was…
The role of a super-Alfv\'enic plasmoid instability in the onset of fast reconnection is studied by means of the largest Hall magnetohydrodynamics simulations to date, with system sizes up to $10^{4}$ ion skin depths ($d_{i}$). It is…