Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Mar 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003jgra..108.1133d&link_type=abstract
Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics), Volume 108, Issue A3, pp. SMP 20-1, CiteID 1133, DOI 10.1029/2001JA009180
Physics
Plasma Physics
33
Space Plasma Physics: Transport Processes, Space Plasma Physics: Numerical Simulation Studies, Space Plasma Physics: Kinetic And Mhd Theory, Space Plasma Physics: Magnetic Reconnection
Scientific paper
We compute numerical solutions of the resistive Hall MHD equations corresponding to pairwise magnetic island coalescence. The simulation results can be organized according to the relative sizes of three length scales: the electron dissipation length, le the ion inertial length, di; and the island wavelength, λ. We identify three qualitatively distinct regimes of magnetic island coalescence: (1) the resistive MHD limit, di <~ le << λ (2) the ``whistler-mediated'' limit, le << di << λ and (3) the ``whistler-driven'' limit, le << λ <~ di. In the resistive MHD limit, magnetic flux piles up outside thin current sheets between the islands. The upstream Alfvén speed increases with increasing Lundquist number, and the reconnection rate is insensitive to the Lundquist number. In the whistler-driven limit, the electron and ion bulk flows decouple on the island wavelength scale. Magnetic flux pileup does not occur, and the coalescence proceeds on a whistler timescale that is much shorter than the Alfvén time. In the whistler-mediated limit, electron and ion bulk flows decouple in spatially localized ``ion inertial sheets'' around the island separatrices. Flux pileup is reduced, and the upstream Alfvén speed approaches a nearly constant value as the Lundquist number is increased. The maximum reconnection rate in the whistler-mediated limit is comparable to that observed in the resitive MHD limit over the Lundquist number range 500 < Sλ < 10000.
Birn Joachim
Dorelli John C.
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