Slow shock formation and temperature anisotropy in collisionless magnetic reconnection

Details Slow shock formation and temperature anisotropy in collisionless magnetic reconnection Slow shock formation and temperature anisotropy in collisionless magnetic reconnection

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsm13c2091h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SM13C-2091

Physics

[2723] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetic Reconnection, [2744] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetotail, [2764] Magnetospheric Physics / Plasma Sheet

Scientific paper

We perform a two-dimensional simulation by using an electromagnetic hybrid code to study the formation of slow-mode shocks in collisionless magnetic reconnection in low beta plasmas, and we argue that one of important agents of the formation of slow shocks is the ion temperature anisotropy enhanced at the shock downstream region. As magnetic reconnection develops, it is known that the parallel temperature along the magnetic field becomes large in association with the anisotropic PSBL ion beams, and this temperature anisotropy has a tendency to suppress the formation of slow shock. Although preceding studies on magnetic reconnection with kinetic codes have shown such ion temperature anisotropy along the reconnection layer, the direct relation between formation of slow shocks and the ion temperature anisotropy has not been investigated. Based on our simulation result, we found that the slow shock formation is suppressed due to the large temperature anisotropy near the X-type region, but the downstream ion temperature anisotropy relaxes with increasing the distance from the magnetic neutral point. As a result, two pairs of current structures, which are the strong evidence of dissipation of magnetic field in slow shocks, are formed at the distance |x| > 115 λ i from the neutral point.

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