Secondary instability in three-dimensional magnetic reconnection

Details Secondary instability in three-dimensional magnetic reconnection Secondary instability in three-dimensional magnetic reconnection

Dec 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992phflb...4.3902d&link_type=abstract

Physics of Fluids B (ISSN 0899-8221), vol. 4, no. 12, p. 3902-3914.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

44

Astrophysics, Energy Transfer, Magnetic Field Reconnection, Magnetohydrodynamic Stability, Neutral Sheets, Plasma Layers, Transferring, Turbulence, Algorithms, Catalysts, Simulation, Stability, Steady State

Scientific paper

We consider the transition to turbulence in three-dimensional reconnection of a magnetic neutral sheet. We find that the transition can occur via a three-step process. First, the sheet undergoes the usual tearing instability. Second, the tearing mode saturates to form a two-dimensional quasi-steady state. Third, this secondary equilibrium is itself unstable when it is perturbed by three-dimensional disturbances. Most of this paper is devoted to the analysis and simulation of the three-dimensional linear stability properties of the two-dimensional saturated tearing layer. The numerical simulations are performed with a semi-implicit, pseudospectral-Fourier collocation algorithm. We identify a three-dimensional secondary linear stability which grows on the ideal timescale. An examination of the modal energetics reveals that the largest energy transfer is from the mean field to the three-dimensional field, with the two-dimensional field acting as a catalyst.

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