Effect of Inflow Density on Ion Diffusion Region of Magnetic Reconnection: Particle-in-Cell Simulations

Details Effect of Inflow Density on Ion Diffusion Region of Magnetic Reconnection: Particle-in-Cell Simulations Effect of Inflow Density on Ion Diffusion Region of Magnetic Reconnection: Particle-in-Cell Simulations

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsm21d..08w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SM21D-08

Physics

Plasma Physics

[2723] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetic Reconnection, [2744] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetotail, [7835] Space Plasma Physics / Magnetic Reconnection

Scientific paper

We perform a systematic study of the effect of inflow density on reconnection diffusion regions using a 2.5-D particle-in-cell (PIC) code. We analyze the diffusion region structure at times when all simulations have reconnected the same amount of magnetic flux. We find that reducing the inflow density from 1 to 1/100th of the current sheet density dramatically increases the diffusion region physical size and the reconnection rate. The aspect ratio of the ion diffusion region remains a constant, independent of the inflow density. The quadrupole Hall magnetic field is reduced. The upstream magnetic field deviates from its asymptotic value by 50% at the lowest simulated inflow density. The downstream ion outflow velocity scale linearly with the upstream Alfven speed with a multiplication factor ~0.4 <1. When applied to magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail, this factor of 0.4 is a possible explanation as to why bulk flow velocities in the magnetotail are typically on the order of 500 km/s, while the Alfven speeds of inflowing plasmas can exceed 2000 km/s. In addition, we find systematically that in the inflow region, both the diffusion region width and the ion meandering length scale with the upstream ion inertial length.

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