Instability at the edge of reconnection jets

Details Instability at the edge of reconnection jets Instability at the edge of reconnection jets

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufmsm61a0459t&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #SM61A-0459

Physics

0654 Plasmas, 7835 Magnetic Reconnection, 7843 Numerical Simulation Studies, 7871 Waves And Instabilities

Scientific paper

When the reconnection process has fully developed, the leading part of a reconnection jet pushes and compresses the plasma standing ahead of it, and steep pressure gradient threaded by curved field lines develops in front of the jet. It implies that the leading edge of the jet wil be unstable to an interchange instability. We have studied this situation by three dimensional MHD simulations. As soon as the pressure gradient develops adequately, the jet front becomes wavy and subsequently grows into a bubble-like pattern. The growth rate of this mode depends on the wavelength, with the shorter wavelength mode growing faster. It is also revealed that the magnetic pressure and plasma pressure are out of phase on the equatorial plane, which makes us identify the mode at the edge of jets as the ballooning mode instability. We have found that the shape of the jet are further modified in the late growth phase of a short wavelength mode. As the bubble-like pattern is elongated in time, a velocity shear is produced between the parts that leads ahead and that is left behind.The Kelvin-Helmholtz(K-H) instability grows in the velocity shear layer, which undulate the already complex bubble-like pattern into a turbulent state. As a whole, our three dimensional MHD simulations tell that the leading edge of reconnection jets should be highly turbulent. We will discuss the consequences of this jet-driven turbulence in the magnetospheric physics context as well as in the astrophysical context.

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