Plasma Heating by Gas-Dynamic Shocks in Thin Post-reconnection Flux Tubes

Details Plasma Heating by Gas-Dynamic Shocks in Thin Post-reconnection Flux Tubes Plasma Heating by Gas-Dynamic Shocks in Thin Post-reconnection Flux Tubes

May 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009spd....40.2001g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, SPD meeting #40, #20.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.852

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Magnetic Reconnection initiates solar eruptions like flares and Coronal Mass Ejections. In models of spatially and temporally localized reconnection, called "Patchy Reconnection", magnetic energy is converted into kinetic energy, as rapidly as observations suggest. In this process, straight field lines forming an angle on opposite sides of a current sheet, reconnect across a patch. Once reconnected, this bundle of field lines forms two V-shaped thin flux tubes, and magnetic tension at their cusps causes them to retract.
For the first time, we demonstrate the development of gas-dynamic shocks, GDSs, in these post-reconnection flux tubes. We introduce modified thin flux tube equations that account for dynamics parallel to the magnetic field, where the only relevant force is thermal pressure gradient. The shortening of the retracting tubes leads to compressive supersonic parallel flows that develop into GDSs that can heat the plasma up to observed temperatures ( 20 MK on top of post-flare arcades).
In the solar corona, viscosity and thermal conductivity are large along the magnetic field. We developed a code, called DEFT, that simulates the retraction of the two thin reconnected tubes, and includes these transport coefficients, as well as their strong dependence on temperature ( T5/2). Simulations are carried out using real coronal parameters.
As the flux tubes retract, they follow a time dependent evolution until they reach the theoretical steady state jump conditions. For high Mach numbers and low Prandtl numbers, the internal structure of the GDSs includes an isothermal sub-shock with thickness governed by viscosity, and a second region where temperature increases and the entropy of the plasma achieves a maximum value.
This work was supported by NASA grant LWS05-0032, and NSF.

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