3D non-driven magnetic reconnection at multiple separators

Abstract

Separators are important topological features of magnetic configuration for magnetic reconnection, commonly found in the solar plasma. They are located at the boundary shared among four distinctive flux domains; therefore, current layers easily build up around them. This paper aims to explore non-driven magnetic reconnection at multiple separators since little information is available about it. We have done two sets of experiments: non-resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) relaxation and resistive MHD reconnection of a magnetic configuration consisting of two null points alongside their associated spines and three non-potential separators, which connect the same two null points. We used the LARE3D code for this purpose. The main current layers are formed along these separators where reconnection takes place. The reconnection occurs in two distinct phases: fast–strong and slow–weak. Most of the current dissipates at a fast rate, through Ohmic heating, during the fast–strong phase. The short-lived impulsive bursty reconnection events occur randomly in the slow–weak phase, while viscous heating exceeds Ohmic heating in this phase. The electric field component is parallel to field lines along the separators; likewise, the rate of reconnection along each of them evolved over time. However, work on separator reconnection has a strong potential to understand the underlying physics.

Self-consistent nanoflare heating in model active regions: MHD avalanches

“…Between, on the one hand, combined shock and viscous heating and, on the other, Ohmic heating, there is an approximate equipartition in the electromagnetic energy dissipated narrowly about the reconnecting layer (Priest 2014 ). Greater dissipation, ho we ver, is produced outside the diffusion region (Longcope & Tarr 2012 ), particularly in the presence of non-zero pressure and finite current layers, as a result of the dynamics instigated by the local reconnection (Longcope & Priest 2007 ;Fuentes-Fern ández et al 2012a ;Fuentes-Fern ández, Parnell & Priest 2012b ;Zahid, Parnell & Qamar 2021 ). Pressure gradients steepen as the local temperature is raised.…”