The dynamics of a secondary tearing instability is systematically investigated based on compressible Hall magnetohydrodynamic. It is found that in the early nonlinear phase of magnetic reconnection before onset of the secondary tearing instability, the geometry of the magnetic field in the reconnection region tends to form a Y-type structure in a weak Hall regime, instead of an X-type structure in a strong Hall regime. A new scaling law is found that the maximum reconnection rate in the early nonlinear stage is proportional to the square of the ion inertial length (γ∝di2) in the weak Hall regime. In the late nonlinear phase, the thin elongated current sheet associated with the Y-type geometry of the magnetic field breaks up to form a magnetic island due to a secondary tearing instability. After the onset of the secondary tearing mode, the reconnection rate is substantially boosted by the formation of the X-type geometries of magnetic field in the reconnection regions. With a strong Hall effect, the maximum reconnection rate linearly increases with the increase of the ion inertial length (γ∝di).

[1] Slow shock formation and structure associated with magnetic reconnection are investigated in the presence of sub-Alfvénic shear flow using a compressible resistive MHD model. It is found for the first time that one or two pairs of the slow shocks are formed in the inflow region away from the reconnection separatrices within compressible resistive MHD. The distributions of the slow shocks depend largely on the plasma beta and the shear flow velocity that lead to the increase of magnetic reconnection rate. One pair of the slow shocks is formed for b = 0.2 and two pairs of the slow shocks are generated for b = 1.0 with the shear flow velocity in the range 0.6 V A to 0.9 V A . For high plasma beta (b = 5.0), there is no slow shock formed outside the reconnection separatrices. The results can be applied to interpret slow shock observations at the dayside magnetopause.

Nonlinear dynamics of magnetic reconnection with an external sub-Alfvenic parallel shear flow is investigated by using two-dimensional compressible Hall MHD simulation. Two pairs of slow shocks in the inflow region are generated by the sub-Alfvenic shear flow in the MHD simulation. With inclusion of Hall effects, it is found that whistler waves are generated in the downstream region of slow shocks. The whistler waves propagating toward the reconnection region drive a large bursty enhancement in magnetic reconnection during its decaying phase.

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