Rigorous theories of the tearing instability are mathematically quite involving. Therefore, the present note aims to demonstrate how their main results can be reproduced by a simple qualitative analysis of the respective magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations.
In this paper, we study the effects of viscosity on the evolution of double tearing mode (DTM) in a pair of adjacent Harris sheets based on the resistive MHD model in the NIMROD code. Similar to the tearing mode in the conventional single Harris sheet, a transition is observed in the generation of both normal and monster plasmoids at Pr = 1. In the Pr < 1 regime of DTM, normal plasmoids (small plasmoids) are generated along with monster plasmoid, whereas in the single tearing mode (STM) cases such a generation is not observed. When Pr is above the critical value, the generation of monster plas…
In this study, the evolution of a highly unstable m = 1 resistive tearing mode, leading to plasmoid formation in a Harris sheet is studied in the framework of full MHD model using the NIMROD simulation. Following the initial nonlinear growth of the primary m = 1 island, the X-point develops into a secondary elongated current sheet that eventually breaks into plasmoids. Two distinctive viscous regimes are found for the plasmoid formation and saturation. In the low viscosity regime (i.e. P r . 1), the plasmoid width increases sharply with viscosity, whereas in the viscosity dominant regime (i.e.…
We study the time-dependent formation and evolution of a current sheet (CS) in a magnetized, collisionless, high-beta plasma using hybrid-kinetic particle-in-cell simulations. An initially tearing-stable Harris sheet is frozen into a persistently driven incompressible flow so that its characteristic thickness gradually decreases in time. As the CS thins, the strength of the reconnecting field increases, and adiabatic invariance in the inflowing fluid elements produces a field-biased pressure anisotropy with excess perpendicular pressure. At large plasma beta, this anisotropy excites the mirror…
Development of Tearing Instability in a Current Sheet Forming by Sheared Incompressible Flow
高伦德奎斯特数等离子体中的Sweet-Parker电流片对撕裂不稳定,这表明它们不会在物理系统中形成。因此,理解磁重联需要研究电流片形成时的稳定性。由于剪切,亚阿尔夫文不可压缩流使片变窄,因此可能发生形成。标准撕裂理论(Furth等,1963; Coppi等,1976; Rutherford,1973)不能直接应用于这种成形薄板,原因有二:第一,因为流动引入了标准计算中不存在的项;第二,因为变化的平衡引入了标准计算中常数项的时间依赖性,使本征值问题的公式化复杂化。本文采用标准的撕裂模式分析,以面对这些挑战。在初始阶段,当任何扰动主要由理想MHD支配时,坐标变换揭示了流动压缩和拉伸扰动。多尺度公式描述了线性撕裂模理论(Furth et al. 1963; Coppi et al. 1976)如何应用于流动下的平衡变化,表明通过使标准尺度依赖于时间,流动仅隐含地影响可分离的指数增长。在非线性卢瑟福阶段,坐标变换表明,标准理论可以通过添加到稳态速率的时间依赖性和一个额外的项,由于加强平衡磁场。总的来说,这种理解支持使用无流动的缩放与轻微的修改,以研究在成形片材撕裂。
Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院云南天文台);University of Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院大学);Yunnan Key Laboratory of Solar Physics and Space Science(云南太阳能物理与空间科学重点实验室)
In flare-relevant current sheets, tearing instability may trigger explosive reconnection and plasmoid formation. We explore how the thermal and tearing modes reinforce each other in the fragmentation of a current sheet in the solar corona through an explosive reconnection process, characterized by the formation of plasmoids which interact and trap condensing plasma. We use a resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation of a 2D current layer, incorporating the non-adiabatic effects of optically thin radiative energy loss and background heating using \texttt{MPI-AMRVAC}. Our parametric survey …
Turbulence in a conducting plasma can amplify seed magnetic fields in what is known as the turbulent, or small-scale, dynamo. The associated growth rate and emergent magnetic-field geometry depend sensitively on the material properties of the plasma, in particular on the Reynolds number ${\rm Re}$, the magnetic Reynolds number ${\rm Rm}$, and their ratio ${\rm Pm}\equiv{\rm Rm}/{\rm Re}$. For ${\rm Pm} > 1$, the amplified magnetic field is gradually arranged into a folded structure, with direction reversals at the resistive scale and field lines curved at the larger scale of the flow. As the m…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental physical process converting magnetic energy into not only plasma energy but also particle energy in various astrophysical phenomena. In this letter, we show a unique dataset of a solar flare where various plasmoids were formed by a continually stretched current sheet. EUV images captured reconnection inflows, outflows, and particularly the recurring plasma blobs (plasmoids). X-ray images reveal nonthermal emission sources at the lower end of the current sheet, presumably as large plasmoids with a sufficiently amount of energetic electrons trapped in. In t…
Magnetic reconnection associated with the tearing instability occurring in double-current sheet systems is investigated within the framework of reduced resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in a two-dimensional Cartesian geometry. The explosive non linear phase is particularly explored using the adaptive finite-element FINMHD code. The critical aspect ratio, that is defined as the minimum $L/x_s$ ratio (with $L$ and $x_s$ being the periodic system length and half-distance between the two current layers respectively) necessary for non linear destabilization after the linear and early non linear …
We attempt to model magnetic reconnection during the two-ribbon flare in the gravitationally stratified solar atmosphere with the Lundquist number of $S=10^6$ using 2D simulations. We found that the tearing mode instability leads to the inhomogeneous turbulence inside the reconnecting current sheet (CS) and invokes the fast phase of reconnection. Fast reconnection brings an extra dissipation of magnetic field which enhances the reconnection rate in an apparent way. The energy spectrum in the CS shows the power-law pattern and the dynamics of plasmoids governs the associated spectral index. We …
We investigate the onset of the classical magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) tearing instability (TI) and focus on non-modal (transient) growth rather than the tearing mode. With the help of pseudospectral theory, the operators of the linear equations are shown to be highly non-normal, resulting in the possibility of significant transient growth at the onset of the TI. This possibility increases as the Lundquist number $S$ increases. In particular, we find evidence, numerically, that the maximum possible transient growth, measured in the $L_2$-norm, for the classical setup of current sheets unstable to…
Guide-Field-mediated Multiscale Instabilities in Relativistic Reconnection
KU Leuven(荷语鲁汶大学);Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy(比利时皇家空间气科学研究院);Dartmouth College(达特茅斯学院);University of Maryland(马里兰大学);Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics(加拿大理论天体物理研究所)
Resistive instabilities of current sheets in stratified plasmas with a gravitational field
Institute for Fusion Studies, Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin(德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校物理系聚变研究所);Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Assiut University(阿西尤特大学理学院物理系)
The tearing mode instability is one important mechanism that may explain the triggering of fast magnetic reconnection in astrophysical plasmas such as the solar corona and the Earth's magnetosphere. In this paper, the linear stability analysis of the tearing mode is carried out for a current sheet in the presence of a guide field, including the Hall effect. We show that the presence of a strong guide field does not modify the most unstable mode in the two-dimensional wave vector space orthogonal to the current gradient direction, which remains the fastest growing parallel mode. With the Hall e…
We study the stability problem of a magnetohydrodynamic current sheet with the presence of a plasma jet. The flow direction is perpendicular to the normal of the current sheet and we analyze two cases: (1) The flow is along the anti-parallel component of the magnetic field; (2) The flow is perpendicular to the anti-parallel component of the magnetic field. A generalized equation set with the condition of incompressibility is derived and solved as a boundary-value-problem. For the first case, we show that, the streaming kink mode is stabilized by the magnetic field at $V_0/B_0 \lesssim 2$, wher…
Revisiting the Growth Rate of the Relativistic Tearing Instability: The Role of the Non-ideal MHD Structure
SIT Research Laboratories, Shibaura Institute of Technology(芝浦工业大学 SIT 研究实验室);Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP), Kyoto University(京都大学汤川理论物理研究所(YITP));Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)(马克斯·普朗克引力物理研究所(爱因斯坦研究所))
The presence of current sheet instabilities, such as the tearing mode instability, are needed to account for the observed rate of energy release in solar flares. Insights into these current sheet dynamics can be revealed by the behaviour of flare ribbon substructure, as magnetic reconnection accelerates particles down newly reconnected field lines into the chromosphere to mark the flare footpoints. Behaviour in the ribbons can therefore be used to probe processes occurring in the current sheet. In this study, we use high-cadence (1.7 s) IRIS Slit Jaw Imager observations to probe for the growth…