Reversible collisionless magnetic reconnection

Journal Article · Tue Oct 15 04:00:00 EDT 2013 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4826201· OSTI ID:22218508

Ishizawa, A.; Watanabe, T. -H. ^[1]

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1. National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki 509-5292 (Japan)

Reversible magnetic reconnection is demonstrated for the first time by means of gyrokinetic numerical simulations of a collisionless magnetized plasma. Growth of a current-driven instability in a sheared magnetic field is accompanied by magnetic reconnection due to electron inertia effects. Following the instability growth, the collisionless reconnection is accelerated with development of a cross-shaped structure of current density, and then all field lines are reconnected. The fully reconnected state is followed by the secondary reconnection resulting in a weakly turbulent state. A time-reversed simulation starting from the turbulent state manifests that the collisionless reconnection process proceeds inversely leading to the initial state. During the reversed reconnection, the kinetic energy is reconverted into the original magnetic field energy. In order to understand the stability of reversed process, an external perturbation is added to the fully reconnected state, and it is found that the accelerated reconnection is reversible when the deviation of the E × B streamlines due to the perturbation is comparable with or smaller than a current layer width.

• OSTI ID: 22218508
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 20; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CURRENT DENSITY
ELECTRONS
KINETIC ENERGY
LAYERS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETIC RECONNECTION
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
MOMENT OF INERTIA
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
PLASMA
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA SIMULATION
SHEAR