Scalings pertaining to current sheet disruption mediated by the plasmoid instability

Huang, Yi-Min; Comisso, Luca; Bhattacharjee, Amitava

doi:10.1063/1.5110332

Title: Scalings pertaining to current sheet disruption mediated by the plasmoid instability

Journal Article · Mon Sep 23 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5110332· OSTI ID:1604411

^[1];

^[2]; Bhattacharjee, Amitava ^[3]

Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (United States). Princeton Center for Heliophysics, and Max Planck/Princeton Center for Plasma Physics; Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). Columbia Astrophysics Lab.
Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (United States). Princeton Center for Heliophysics, and Max Planck/Princeton Center for Plasma Physics; Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States); Flatiron Inst., New York, NY (United States). Center for Computational Astrophysics

Analytic scaling relations are derived for a phenomenological model of the plasmoid instability in an evolving current sheet, including the effects of reconnection outflow. Two scenarios are considered, where the plasmoid instability can be triggered either by an injected initial perturbation or by the natural noise of the system (here referred to as the system noise). The two scenarios lead to different scaling relations because the initial noise decays when the linear growth of the plasmoid instability is not sufficiently fast to overcome the advection loss caused by the reconnection outflow, whereas the system noise represents the lowest level of fluctuations in the system. The leading order approximation for the current sheet width at disruption takes the form of a power law multiplied by a logarithmic factor, and from that, the scaling relations for the wavenumber and the linear growth rate of the dominant mode are obtained. When the effects of the outflow are neglected, the scaling relations agree, up to the leading order approximation, with previously derived scaling relations based on a principle of least time. As a result, the analytical scaling relations are validated with numerical solutions of the model.

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Research Organization:: Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); Simons Foundation; SDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0016470; AGS-1338944; AGS-1460169; 80NSSC18K1285

OSTI ID:: 1604411

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1564541; OSTI ID: 1572706

Journal Information:: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 26, Issue 9; ISSN 1070-664X

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 9 works

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