Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009spd....40.3704l&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, SPD meeting #40, #37.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.870
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
In Petschek's original steady-state model, anti-parallel magnetic fields are reconnected along an infinite line of enhanced electric field. Away from the reconnection line, a set of standing slow mode shocks reduce the magnetic field strength, converting magnetic energy directly into thermal and kinetic energies in comparable measure. This picture changes when the reconnecting fields are not perfectly anti-parallel but meet at some angle. In this case the magnetic energy release can be attributed to shortening field lines instead of, or in addition to, reducing field strength. The shortening occurs at intermediate shocks where energy is converted entirely into kinetic energy of bulk flows directed partly toward the center of the shortened portion of the field line. These inward flows collide in slow mode shocks or gas-dynamic shocks where their kinetic energy is partially thermalized. When the initial beta is very low, as it would be in the corona, the heated plasma occupies a small fraction of the shortened section. As a consequence, only a small fraction of released magnetic energy is ultimately thermalized, except in cases where the initial field nearly is nearly anti-parallel. We show this energetic scenario to be qualitatively and quantitatively consistent in models of steady and unsteady reconnection in one, two and three dimensions, provided the reconnecting field is not perfectly anti-parallel. Among these models, unsteady, three-dimensional reconnection results in retracting flux tubes similar to the ones proposed to explain supra-arcade down flows following CMEs.
This work supported by NSF and NASA
Guidoni Silvina E.
Linton Mark G.
Longcope Dana
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