The kinetic structure of reconnection exhaust

Details The kinetic structure of reconnection exhaust The kinetic structure of reconnection exhaust

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsh31a1459l&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SH31A-1459

Physics

Plasma Physics

[2723] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetic Reconnection, [7811] Space Plasma Physics / Discontinuities, [7829] Space Plasma Physics / Kinetic Waves And Instabilities, [7835] Space Plasma Physics / Magnetic Reconnection

Scientific paper

In the Petschek picture of reconnection, a pair of switch-off slow shocks bound the outflow regions. However, observations of reconnection rarely, if ever, see such features. We investigate the discontinuities that bound magnetic reconnection exhausts via full particle (PIC) simulations. These 2-D Riemann problems start from an initial pressure balanced set up composed of both a Harris asymptotic magnetic field and a small uniform normal field, with or without a guide field. Our results suggest that rotational discontinuities or intermediate shocks bound the exhausts in guide field reconnection. The switch-off slow shocks that are predicted to bound the outflow region in antiparallel reconnection are also seen. A firehose-like instability is shown to be active around the fronts of slow shocks in 2-D simulations, which is absent in 1-D studies. A similar fluctuation is also seen inside the exhaust of 2-D large scale PIC reconnection simulations. The isotroprization process of the downstream plasma inside the exhaust via this instability is also studied.

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