Related papers: Tearing modes in partially ionized plasmas
In high-Lundquist-number plasmas, reconnection proceeds via onset of tearing, followed by a nonlinear phase during which plasmoids continuously form, merge, and are ejected from the current sheet (CS). This process is understood in fully…
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…
This paper discusses the transition to fast growth of the tearing instability in thin current sheets in the collisionless limit where electron inertia drives the reconnection process. It has been previously suggested that in resistive MHD…
We study the linear and nonlinear evolution of the tearing instability on thin current sheets by means of two-dimensional numerical simulations, within the framework of compressible, resistive magnetohydrodynamics. In particular we analyze…
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…
We investigate the linear tearing instability in weakly collisional plasmas using a non-ideal gyrotropic-MHD framework, uncovering a previously unknown scaling relation for the instability growth rate in high-$\beta$ environments. Even…
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…
Magnetic reconnection in laboratory, space and astrophysical plasmas is often invoked to explain explosive energy release and particle acceleration. However, the timescales involved in classical models within the macroscopic MHD regime are…
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 ($S$)…
The pulsed radio emission of rotating neutron stars is connected to slow resistive instabilities feeding off an inhomogeneous twist profile within the open circuit. This paper considers the stability of a weakly sheared, quantizing magnetic…
The recent observations of Singh et al. (2012) have shown multiple plasma ejections and the intermittent nature of magnetic reconnection in the solar chromosphere, highlighting the need for fast reconnection to occur in highly collisional…
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…
We present 2D MHD numerical simulations of tearing-unstable current sheets coupled to a population of non-thermal test-particles, in order to address the problem of numerical convergence with respect to grid resolution, numerical method and…
This paper studies the growth rate of reconnection instabilities in thin current sheets in the presence of both resistivity and viscosity. In a previous paper, Pucci and Velli (2014), it was argued that at sufficiently high Lundquist number…
The manner in which the rate of magnetic reconnection scales with the Lundquist number in realistic three-dimensional (3D) geometries is still an unsolved problem. It has been demonstrated that in 2D rapid non-linear tearing allows the…
The effects of friction on the ion acoustic (IA) wave in fully and partially ionized plasmas are studied. In a quasi-neutral electron-ion plasma the friction between the two species cancels out exactly and the wave propagates without any…
In flare-relevant current sheets, tearing instability may trigger explosive reconnection and plasmoid formation. We explore how the thermal and tearing modes reinforce each other in the fragmentation of a current sheet in the solar corona…
Fast reconnection operating in magnetically dominated plasmas is often invoked in models for magnetar giant flares, for magnetic dissipation in pulsar winds, or to explain the gamma-ray flares observed in the Crab nebula, hence its…
Astrophysical current layers, e.g., in pulsar winds, can be electrically charged, while the plasma is charge-symmetric, $e^\pm$. Using PIC simulations, we investigate dynamics and plasmoid formation (tearing instability) in charged…
Magnetic reconnection in partially ionized plasmas plays a crucial role in a wide range of solar, astrophysical, and laboratory environments. While reconnection in such plasmas is commonly characterized by the ion-neutral coupling strength…