Computational experiments in various collisionality regimes show that, when the drive is unambiguously separated from the reconnection region, driven magnetic reconnection, in its idealized and extensively studied two dimensional form, proceeds at a rate determined only by the boundary conditions. Within certain bounds, details of the physics model used in studying this ubiquitous phenomenon pl...

‘1’he process of magnetic reconnection plays an important role durit[g the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth’s magnetosphere which leads to the exchange of mass, momentum, and energy between these two highly conducting pl~smas. Evidence for magnetic reconnection occurring at the magnetopause vis a vis the expected signature from the reconnection model will be discussed. Magnetic reco...

Magnetic reconnection is an important process in magnetized plasmas ranging from the laboratory to astrophysical scales. It enables the release of magnetic energy believed to power solar flares and magnetospheric substorms. Reconnection also controls the evolution of the topology of the magnetic field, enabling deleterious instabilities, such as the sawtooth instability in fusion experiments, t...

This work investigates the nature and the role of magnetic reconnection in a global magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the magnetosphere. We use the Gumics-4 simulation to study reconnection that occurs in the near-Earth region of the current sheet in the magnetotail. We locate the current sheet surface and the magnetic x-line that appears when reconnection starts. We illustrate the difference b...

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The role of turbulence in the process of magnetic reconnection has been the subject of a great deal of study and debate in the theoretical literature. At issue in this debate is whether turbulence is essential for fast magnetic reconnection to occur in collisionless current sheets. Some theories claim it is necessary in order to provide anomalous resistivity, while others present a laminar fast...

We examine the effect of weak, small scale magnetic field structure on the rate of reconnection in a strongly magnetized plasma. We recover lower and upper limits on the reconnection rate, depending on the reaction of the magnetic field to stresses exerted from within the reconnection layer. Using Goldreich and Sridhar’s model of strong turbulence in a magnetized plasma with negligible intermit...

As a key to undertanding the basic mechanism for fast reconnection in solar flares, plasmoid-inducedreconnection and fractal reconnection are proposed and examined. We first briefly summarize recent solar observations that give us hints on the role of plasmoid (flux rope) ejections in flare energy release. We then discuss the plasmoid-induced-reconnection model, which is an extention of the cla...

The scaling of magnetic reconnection in the presence of an oppositely directed sub-Alfvénic shear flow parallel to the reconnecting magnetic field is studied using analytical scaling arguments and two-dimensional two-fluid numerical simulations of collisionless (Hall) reconnection. Previous studies noted that the reconnection rate falls and the current sheet tilts with increasing flow speed, bu...

Collisionless magnetic reconnection in high-temperature plasmas has been widely studied through fluid-based models. Here, we present results of fluid simulation implementing new equations of state for guide-field reconnection. The new fluid closure accurately accounts for the anisotropic electron pressure that builds in the reconnection region due to electric and magnetic trapping of electrons....