Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
May 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21640701e&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #216, #407.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.859
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Current-sheet formation and magnetic reconnection are believed to be the basic physical processes responsible for much of the activity observed in astrophysical plasmas, such as interchange reconnection at the boundaries between coronal holes and helmet streamers in the Sun's corona. We investigate these processes for a magnetic configuration consisting of a uniform background field and an embedded line dipole, a topology that is expected to be ubiquitous in the corona. This magnetic system is driven by a uniform horizontal flow applied at the line-tied photosphere. Although both the initial field and the driver are translationally symmetric, the resulting evolution is calculated using a fully three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (3D MHD) simulation with adaptive mesh refinement that resolves the current sheet and reconnection dynamics in detail. The advantage of our approach is that it allows us to apply directly the vast body of knowledge gained from the many studies of 2D reconnection to the fully 3D case. We find that a current sheet forms in close analogy to the classic Syrovatskii 2D mechanism, but the resulting evolution is different than expected. The current sheet is globally stable, showing no evidence for a disruption or a secondary instability even for aspect ratios as high as 80:1. The global evolution generally follows the standard Sweet-Parker 2D reconnection model except for an accelerated reconnection rate at a very thin current sheet, due to the tearing instability and the formation of magnetic islands. An interesting conclusion is that despite the formation of fully 3D structures at small scales, the system remains close to 2D at global scales. We discuss the implications of our results for observations of the solar corona.
Antiochos Spiro K.
DeVore C.
Edmondson Justin K.
Velli M. M.
Zurbuchen Thomas H.
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