Collisionless magnetic reconnection: analytical model and PIC simulation comparison

Semenov, V. S.; Korovinskiy, Daniil; Divin, Andrey; Еркаев, Н. В.; Biernat, H. K.

doi:10.5194/angeo-27-905-2009

Cited by 4 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…This comparison is object of our future study. Encouraging for this matter is that the comparison of our former model of reconnection in an incompressible plasma with numerical simulations showed good qualitative agreement [ Semenov et al , 2009].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 2.5-D electron Hall-MHD analytical model of steady state Hall magnetic reconnection in a compressible plasma

et al. 2011

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[1] A 2.5-D analytical electron Hall magnetohydrodynamic model of steady state magnetic reconnection in a collisionless compressible plasma with a constant electron temperature is developed. It is shown that as in the incompressible case, the solution of the Grad-Shafranov equation for the magnetic potential is a basis for the problem analysis. The formation of the double electric layers and layers of low-density plasma, mapping the magnetic separatrices, are investigated. It is found that the formation of depletion layers should not be governed by the out-of-plane magnetic field, but rather, the origin of these layers lies inside the electron diffusion region. The double electric layers are found to be thin separatrices-elongated sheets, whose cross sections are of the order of the electron diffusion region half width. These charged layers provide the presence of the strong electric field orthogonal to the in-plane projection of the magnetic field, which forces electrons to accelerate into the out-of-plane direction. Outside of the double electric layers, the condition of quasi-neutrality of the plasma is found to be fulfilled to high accuracy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 2.5-D electron Hall-MHD analytical model of steady state Hall magnetic reconnection in a compressible plasma

et al. 2011

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“…We use the term “formal” because the contribution of the inertial term is found to be non‐vanishing both in PIC‐simulations data (Korovinskiy et al., 2020) and in in‐situ data set studied here. Electron inertia was neglected in a number of previous studies, such as (Hasegawa et al., 2017, 2019; Korovinskiy et al., 2008, 2011, 2020; Semenov et al., 2009; Sonnerup et al., 2016; Uzdensky & Kulsrud, 2006). However, Equation with zero right part (i.e., the Laplace equation) has not been applied for calculation of B y .…”

Section: The Problem Formulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Electron inertia was neglected in a number of previous studies, such as (Hasegawa et al, , 2019Korovinskiy et al, 2008Korovinskiy et al, , 2011Korovinskiy et al, , 2020Semenov et al, 2009;Sonnerup et al, 2016;Uzdensky & Kulsrud, 2006). However, Equation 18 with zero right part (i.e., the Laplace equation) has not been applied for calculation of B y .…”

Section: Reconstruction Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Inertia‐Based Model for Reconstruction of the Electron Diffusion Region

et al. 2021

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Fast magnetic reconnection is an explosive plasma process, bringing the topological reconfiguration of magnetic fields, plasma heating, and acceleration in laboratory and space plasmas (e.g., Gonzalez & Parker, 2016;Yamada et al., 2010). In general, this is a time-dependent multi-scale three-dimensional process (e.g., Bhattacharjee, 2004;Dorfman et al., 2013;Frank, 1999;Xiao et al., 2006), but sometimes reconnection may demonstrate a symmetric configuration and be quasi-stationary. Particularly, at the day side of the Earth's magnetopause, quasi-stationary reconnection has been detected in-situ on several occasions (e.g., Gosling et al., 1982;Phan et al., 2004;Retinò et al., 2005) as well as anti-parallel reconnection (Cassak & Fuselier, 2016, and references therein). The latter is more common in the Earth's magnetotail (Paschmann et al., 2013). It is also important that in many cases reconnection can be studied analytically in the frame of two-dimensional models for the considerable length of the reconnection X-line. Configurations with short X-lines demonstrate spreading in the X-line direction (see, e.g., Li et al., 2020, and references therein) in course of time. At last, both at the dayside magnetopause and in the magnetotail (e.g., Cassak &

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“…ffiffi ffi g p B y in Eq. (38), where g is an iterative parameter, taking values from zero to one. However, even this approach meets significant difficulty since an appropriate analytical representation for the term r y Pe is not found yet.…”

Section: Simplified Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, as a matter of fact, both approaches are approximate, applying different methods of the problem regularization. Although they both have been tested on particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations data, 30,38 they have never been compared. In the present paper, we aim to fill this gap.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grad–Shafranov reconstruction of the magnetic configuration in the reconnection X-point vicinity in compressible plasma

et al. 2020

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The reconstruction problem for steady symmetrical two-dimensional magnetic reconnection is addressed in the frame of a two-fluid approximation with neglected ion current. This approach yields Poisson's equation for the magnetic potential of the in-plane magnetic field, where the right-hand side contains the out-of-plane electron current density with the reversed sign. In the simplest case of uniform electron temperature and number density and neglecting the electron inertia, Poisson's equation turns to the Grad-Shafranov one. With boundary conditions fixed at any unclosed curve (the satellite trajectory), both equations result in an ill-posed problem. Since the magnetic configuration in the reconnection region is highly stretched, one can make use of the boundary layer approximation; hence, the problem becomes well-posed. The described approach is generalized for the case of nonuniform electron temperature and number density. The benchmark reconstruction of the PIC simulations data has shown that the main contribution for inaccuracy arises from replacing Poisson's equation by the equation of Grad-Shafranov. Under this substitution, the reachable cross-size of the reconstructed region is shrinking down to fractions of the proton inertial length. Artificial smoothing, demanded by solving the ill-posed problem, and boundary layer approximation represent two alternative methods of problem regularization. In terms of the reconstruction error, they perform nearly the same; the second method benefits from the comparative simplicity and less restrictions imposed on the boundary shape.

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Collisionless magnetic reconnection: analytical model and PIC simulation comparison

Cited by 4 publications

References 44 publications

A 2.5-D electron Hall-MHD analytical model of steady state Hall magnetic reconnection in a compressible plasma

A 2.5-D electron Hall-MHD analytical model of steady state Hall magnetic reconnection in a compressible plasma

The Inertia‐Based Model for Reconstruction of the Electron Diffusion Region

Grad–Shafranov reconstruction of the magnetic configuration in the reconnection X-point vicinity in compressible plasma

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