Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm41d..02s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM41D-02
Physics
Plasma Physics
[2723] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetic Reconnection, [7526] Solar Physics, Astrophysics, And Astronomy / Magnetic Reconnection, [7829] Space Plasma Physics / Kinetic Waves And Instabilities, [7835] Space Plasma Physics / Magnetic Reconnection
Scientific paper
During magnetic reconnection field lines must break and reconnect to release energy, but specifically how this happens has been unclear. Ion-electron drag arising from turbulence (anomalous resistivity) and thermal momentum transport are two mechanisms that have been widely invoked. Measurements of enhanced turbulence near reconnection sites in space and in the laboratory lend support to the anomalous resistivity idea, but there has been no demonstration from measurements that this turbulence produces the necessary enhanced drag. Here we report 3D computer simulations showing that neither of these mechanisms works in low-β plasmas. Instead, when the current layers that form during magnetic reconnection become too intense, they disintegrate and spread into a complex web of filaments that abruptly increases the transverse momentum transport (anomalous viscosity) and leads to an increase in the rate of reconnection. The filamentation is due to an instability that feeds on the gradient of the reconnection current and for which we derive the linear dispersion relation. We also show computer simulations of the instability and discuss the conditions under which it should appear.
Che Hai-hong
Drake James F.
Swisdak Michael
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