Scaling of Sweet-Parker reconnection with secondary islands

Journal Article · Tue Dec 15 00:00:00 EST 2009 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3274462· OSTI ID:21371228

Cassak, P A ^[1]; Shay, M A ^[2]; Drake, J F ^[3]

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1. Department of Physics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506 (United States)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716 (United States)
3. Department of Physics and Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 (United States)

Sweet-Parker (collisional) magnetic reconnection at high Lundquist number is modified by secondary islands. Daughton et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 065004 (2009)] suggested the Sweet-Parker model governs the fragmented current sheet segments. If true, the reconnection rate would increase by the square root of the number of secondary islands. High Lundquist number resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations are presented which agree, in a time-averaged sense, with the predicted scaling. This result may have important implications for energy storage before a solar eruption and its subsequent release.

• OSTI ID: 21371228
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 16, Issue 12; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3274462; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ENERGY STORAGE
MAGNETIC RECONNECTION
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
PLASMA
PLASMA SIMULATION
SCALING
SOLAR CORONA
ATMOSPHERES
FLUID MECHANICS
HYDRODYNAMICS
MECHANICS
SIMULATION
SOLAR ATMOSPHERE
STELLAR ATMOSPHERES
STELLAR CORONAE
STORAGE