Related papers: Reconnection via the Tearing Instability
Magnetic reconnection is one of the most important magnetic energy conversion processes observed in laboratory and space plasmas. It describes the breaking and joining of magnetic field lines, leading to the release of magnetic energy and…
Numerical simulations have consistently shown that the reconnection rate in certain collisionless regimes can be fast, on the order of $0.1 v_A B_u$, where $v_A$ and $B_u$ are the Alfv\'en speed and the reconnecting magnetic field upstream…
Within the resistive magnetohydrodynamic model, high-Lundquist number reconnection layers are unstable to the plasmoid instability, leading to a turbulent evolution where the reconnection rate can be independent of the underlying…
The plasmoid instability may lead to fast magnetic reconnection through long current sheets(CS). It is well known that large-Reynolds-number plasmas easily become turbulent. We address the question whether turbulence enhances the energy…
A new regime of fast magnetic reconnection with an out-of-plane (guide) magnetic field is reported in which the key role is played by an electron pressure anisotropy described by the Chew-Goldberger-Low gyrotropic equations of state in the…
Astrophysical plasmas have the remarkable ability to preserve magnetic topology, which inevitably gives rise to the accumulation of magnetic energy within stressed regions including current sheets. This stored energy is often released…
Analytical theory of fast magnetic reconnection with a large guide field is presented for the first time. We confirm that two distinct reconnection regimes are possible depending on whether the diffusion region thickness $\delta$ is larger…
A model of global magnetic reconnection rate in relativistic collisionless plasmas is developed and validated by the fully kinetic simulation. Through considering the force balance at the upstream and downstream of the diffusion region, we…
In this work we consider magnetic reconnection in thin current sheets with both resistive and electron inertia effects. When the current sheet is produced by a primary instability of the internal kink type, the analysis of secondary…
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,…
Fast magnetic reconnection powers explosive events throughout the universe, from gamma-ray bursts to solar flares. Despite its importance, the onset of astrophysical fast reconnection is the subject of intense debate and remains an open…
Magnetic reconnection occurs when two plasmas having co-planar but anti-parallel magnetic fields meet. At the contact point, the field is locally annihilated and the magnetic energy can be released into the surrounding plasma. Theory and…
We develop a new scaling theory for the resistive tearing mode instability of a current sheet with a strong shear flow across the layer. The growth rate decreases with increasing flow shear and is completely stabilized as the shear flow…
Magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability (MRTI) governs material transport and mixing in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas under the influence of gravity and magnetic fields. While magnetic reconnection is known to occur during MRTI…
In this paper, results of 2.5-dimensional magnetohydrodynamical simulations are reported for the magnetic reconnection of non-perfectly antiparallel magnetic fields. The magnetic field has a component perpendicular to the computational…
Recent gyrokinetic stability calculations have revealed that the spherical tokamak is susceptible to tearing parity instabilities with length scales of a few ion Larmor radii perpendicular to the magnetic field lines. Here we investigate…
We study a resistive tearing instability developing in a system evolving through the combined effect of Hall drift in the Electron-MHD limit and Ohmic dissipation. We explore first the exponential growth of the instability in the linear…
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…
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…
A catastrophe model for the onset of fast magnetic reconnection is presented that suggests why plasma systems with magnetic free energy remain apparently stable for long times and then suddenly release their energy. For a given set of…