Explosive tearing mode reconnection in the magnetospheric tail

Journal Article · Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1978 · Geophys. Res. Lett.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/GL005i008p00707· OSTI ID:6580978

Galeev, A A; Coroniti, F V; Ashour-Abdalla, M

A speculative model for the nonlinear phase of the collisionless tearing instability is developed for the case of a singel long wavelength tearing mode. Using an energy principle formalism, we find that the nonlinear growth rate is linearly proportional to the mode amplitude. Hence in the nonlinear phase, the tearing mode grows explosively in time, and saturates when the width of the magnetic islands become comparable to the thickness of the current sheet. For typical plasma sheet parameters, the explosive phase lasts 5--10 minutes, and develops cross-tail emf's of several 100 KV.

• Research Organization: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• OSTI ID: 6580978
• Journal Information: Geophys. Res. Lett.; (United States), Vol. 5:8
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
MAGNETOTAIL
PLASMA INSTABILITY
COLLISIONLESS PLASMA
INSTABILITY GROWTH RATES
PLASMA ACCELERATION
PLASMA SHEET
ACCELERATION
INSTABILITY
PLASMA
640203* - Atmospheric Physics- Magnetospheric Phenomena- (-1987)