Magnetic reconnection simulation using the 2. 5D em (electromagnetic) direct implicit code AVANTI
Collisionless reconnection of magnetic field lines depends upon electron inertia effects and details of the electron and ion distribution functions, thus requiring a kinetic description of both. Though traditional explicit PIC techniques provide this description in principle, they are severely limited in parameters by time step constraints. This parameter regime has been expanded by using the recently constructed 2.5 D electromagnetic code AVANTI in this work. The code runs stably with arbitrarily large {Delta}t and is quite robust with respect to large fluctuations occurring due to small numbers of particles per cell. We have found several qualitatively new features. The reconnection process is found to occur in distinct stages: early spontaneous reconnection fed by the free energy of an initial anisotropy in the electron component, coalescence of the resulting small-scale filaments of electron current, accompanied by electron jetting, and oscillatory flow of electrons through the magnetic X-point, superposed on continuing nonlinear growth of ion-mediated reconnection. The time evolution of stage is strongly dependent on M{sub i}/m{sub e}. 12 refs., 6 figs.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (USA)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE/DP
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 6997000
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-98768; CONF-8809173-2; ON: DE90008357; TRN: 90-008235
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International workshop on reconnection in space plasma, Potsdam (German Democratic Republic), 5-9 Sep 1988
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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