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Spacecraft data reveals a nonuniform ambipolar electric field transverse to the magnetic field in a thin magnetotail current sheet that leads to intense ExB velocity shear and non-gyrotropic particle distributions. The ExB drift far exceeds…

I propose that solar coronal heating is a self-regulating process that keeps the coronal plasma roughly marginally collisionless. The self-regulating mechanism is based on the interplay of two effects. First, plasma density controls coronal…

Astrophysics · Physics 2010-11-11 Dmitri A. Uzdensky

The formation of a thin current sheet in a magnetic quasi-separatrix layer (QSL) is investigated by means of numerical simulation using a simplified ideal, low-$\beta$, MHD model. The initial configuration and driving boundary conditions…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2014-10-27 Frederic Effenberger , Kay Thust , Lukas Arnold , Rainer Grauer , Jürgen Dreher

Fast-mode magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves in the solar corona are often known to be produced by solar flares and eruptive prominences. We here simulate the effect of the interaction of an external perturbation on a magnetic null in the…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2024-11-05 Sripan Mondal , A. K. Srivastava , David I. Pontin , Eric R. Priest , R. Kwon , Ding Yuan

Relative magnetic helicity is commonly used in solar physics to avoid the well known gauge ambiguity of standard magnetic helicity in magnetically open domains. But its physical interpretation is difficult owing to the invocation of a…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2026-01-12 Anthony R. Yeates , Gunnar Hornig

The nature and detailed properties of the heating of the million-degree solar corona are important issues that are still largely unresolved. Nanoflare heating might be dominant in active regions and quiet Sun, although direct signatures of…

Magnetic reconnection occurring in collisionless environments is a multi-scale process involving both ion and electron kinetic processes. Because of their small mass, the electron scales are difficult to resolve in numerical and satellite…

Context. Heating the solar corona to several million degrees requires the conversion of magnetic energy into thermal energy. In this paper, we investigate whether an unstable magnetic thread within a coronal loop can destabilise a…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2015-07-02 K. V. Tam , A. W. Hood , P. K. Browning , P. J. Cargill

A broad variety of observational methods allows us to see the effect of magnetic reconnection in high-temperature strongly-magnetized plasma of the solar corona. Some specific features of the large-scale reconnection in large solar flares…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2011-02-23 B. V. Somov , S. I. Bezrodnykh , L. S. Ledentsov

In the solar corona, magnetically sheared structures are unstable to both tearing and thermal instabilities in a coupled fashion. However, how the choice of linear perturbation modes influences the time-scale to achieve the thermal runaway…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2024-12-11 Jordi De Jonghe , Samrat Sen

The coronal heating problem remains one of the most challenging questions in solar physics. The energy driving coronal heating is widely understood to be associated with convective motions below the photosphere. Recent high-resolution…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2025-03-21 Rui Wang , Yiming Jiao , Xiaowei Zhao , Chong Huang

Turbulent flows in the solar wind, large scale current sheets, multiple current sheets, and shock waves lead to the formation of environments in which a dense network of current sheets is established and sustains "turbulent reconnection".…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2016-08-17 Loukas Vlahos , Theophilos Pisokas , Heinz Isliker , Vassilios Tsiolis , Anastasios Anastasiadis

In situ measurements of kinetic scale current sheets in the solar wind show that they are often approximately force-free although the plasma beta is of order one. They frequently display systematic asymmetric and anti-correlated spatial…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2025-09-30 Sophie Boswell , Thomas Neukirch , Anton Artemyev , Ivan Vasko , Oliver Allanson

The tearing mode instability is one important mechanism that may explain the triggering of fast magnetic reconnection in astrophysical plasmas such as the solar corona and the Earth's magnetosphere. In this paper, the linear stability…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2020-11-04 Chen Shi , Marco Velli , Fulvia Pucci , Anna Tenerani , Maria Elena Innocenti

The effects of the electron inertia on the current sheets that are formed out of kinetic turbulence are relevant to understand the importance of coherent structures in turbulence and the nature of turbulence at the dissipation scales. We…

Solar atmosphere is a single system unified by the presence of large-scale magnetic fields. Topological changes in magnetic fields that occur in one place may have consequences for coronal heating and eruptions for other, even remote…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2013-02-05 Alexei A. Pevtsov

In thin ($\Delta<$ few $\lambda_i$) collisionless current sheets in a space plasma like the magnetospheric tail or magnetopause current layer, magnetic fields can grow {from thermal fluctuation level by the action of the non-magnetic Weibel…

Space Physics · Physics 2015-05-13 R. A. Treumann , R. Nakamura , W. Baumjohann

During tokamak disruptions the profile of the net parallel current is observed to flatten on a time scale that is so fast that it must be due to a fast magnetic reconnection. After a fast magnetic reconnection has broken magnetic surfaces,…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2020-10-28 Allen H Boozer

Operating experience from fusion research shows how Spitzer resistivity may render ohmic heating in the chromosphere self limiting and thus serve to define the lower margin of the transition region. Its upper margin is at about 6000 K,…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2021-01-21 Claudio Vita-Finzi

A thin current sheet (TCS), with the width of an order of thermal proton gyroradius, appears a fundamental physical object which plays an important role in structuring of major magnetospheric current systems (magnetotail, magnetodisk,…