Physics
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008espm...12.3.36t&link_type=abstract
"12th European Solar Physics Meeting, Freiburg, Germany, held September, 8-12, 2008. Online at http://espm.kis.uni-freiburg.de/,
Physics
Scientific paper
Dungey's (1953) work on X-point collapse is the earliest analysis done on magnetic reconnection and predates the tearing mode, Sweet-Parker and Petcheck reconnection models. X-point collapse soon fell out of favour because in the collisional (MHD) regime, for the plausible space plasma parameters, it was found to be inefficient. We however show [Tsiklauri D. and T. Haruki, Phys. of Plasmas, 14, 112905, (2007)] that in the collisionless regime, which is indeed more applicable to space plasmas, the reconnection is efficient. We study magnetic reconnection during collisionless, stressed, X-point collapse using kinetic, 2.5D, fully electromagnetic, relativistic Particle-in-Cell numerical code. Two cases of weakly and strongly stressed X-point collapse were considered. Here descriptors weakly and strongly refer to 20% and 124% unidirectional spatial compression of the X-point, respectively. We found that within about one Alfven time, 2% and 20% of the initial magnetic energy is converted into heat and accelerated particle energy in the case of weak and strong stress, respectively. In the both cases, during the peak of the reconnection, the quadruple out-of-plane magnetic field is generated. These results strongly suggest the importance of the collisionless, stressed X-point collapse as an efficient mechanism of converting magnetic energy into heat and super-thermal particle energy. In the weakly stressed case, the reconnection rate, defined as the out-of-plane electric field in the X-point normalized by the product of external magnetic field and Alfven speeds, peaks at 0.11, with its average over 1.25 Alfven times being 0.04. Electron energy distribution in the current sheet, at the high-energy end of the spectrum, shows a power-law distribution with the index varying in time, attaining a maximal value of -4.1 at the final simulation time step (1.25 Alfven times). In the strongly stressed case, magnetic reconnection peak occurs 3.4 times faster and is more efficient. The peak reconnection rate now attains value 2.5, with the average reconnection rate over 1.25 Alfven times being 0.5. The power-law energy spectrum for the electrons in the current sheet attains now a steeper index of -5.5, a value close to the ones observed near X-type region in the Earth's magneto-tail. We also investigate dependence of the reconnection rate on the electron-ion mass ratio and use generalized Ohm's law to determine which term is responsible for the breaking down of the frozen-in condition, i.e. which term is responsible for the reconnection.
Haruki Takayuki
Tsiklauri David
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