Magnetic reconnection and stochastic plasmoid chains in high-Lundquist-number plasmas
Aug, 2011Citations per year
Abstract: (arXiv)
A numerical study of magnetic reconnection in the large-Lundquist-number (), plasmoid-dominated regime is carried out for up to . The theoretical model of Uzdensky {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 105}, 235002 (2010)] is confirmed and partially amended. The normalized reconnection rate is \normEeff\sim 0.02 independently of for . The plasmoid flux () and half-width () distribution functions scale as and . The joint distribution of and shows that plasmoids populate a triangular region , where is the reconnecting field. It is argued that this feature is due to plasmoid coalescence. Macroscopic 'monster' plasmoids with % of the system size are shown to emerge in just a few Alfv\'en times, independently of , suggesting that large disruptive events are an inevitable feature of large- reconnection.References(2)
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