dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaRate of steady-state reconnection in an incompressible plasma
| Authors | Nikolai V. Erkaev, Vladimir S. Semenov, Ilya V. Alexeev, Helfried K. Biernat |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0111188 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0111188 |
| DOI | 10.1063/1.1410112 |
| Journal | Phys. Plasmas., 2001, vol. 8, N11, p. 4800 |
Abstract
The reconnection rate is obtained for the simplest case of 2D symmetric reconnection in an incompressible plasma. In the short note (Erkaev et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.,84, 1455 (2000)), the reconnection rate is found by matching the outer Petschek solution and the inner diffusion region solution. Here the details of the numerical simulation of the diffusion region are presented and the asymptotic procedure which is used for deriving the reconnection rate is described. The reconnection rate is obtained as a decreasing function of the diffusion region length. For a sufficiently large diffusion region scale, the reconnection rate becomes close to that obtained in the Sweet-Parker solution with the inverse square root dependence on the magnetic Reynolds number, determined for the global size of the current sheet. On the other hand, for a small diffusion region length scale, the reconnection rate turns out to be very similar to that obtained in the Petschek model with a logarithmic dependence on the magnetic Reynolds number. This means that the Petschek regime seems to be possible only in the case of a strongly localized conductivity corresponding to a small scale of the diffusion region.
{
"annotation_id": "74720813-160d-421a-9b5a-242fb1cebb25",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:00:36.339000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:00:36.339000Z",
"file_hash": "cfb755799afccc52c362b592a71cbaa60c913812d4e0cef7df7ead45222ca765",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "The reconnection rate is obtained for the simplest case of 2D symmetric\nreconnection in an incompressible plasma. In the short note (Erkaev et al.,\nPhys. Rev. Lett.,84, 1455 (2000)), the reconnection rate is found by matching\nthe outer Petschek solution and the inner diffusion region solution. Here the\ndetails of the numerical simulation of the diffusion region are presented and\nthe asymptotic procedure which is used for deriving the reconnection rate is\ndescribed. The reconnection rate is obtained as a decreasing function of the\ndiffusion region length. For a sufficiently large diffusion region scale, the\nreconnection rate becomes close to that obtained in the Sweet-Parker solution\nwith the inverse square root dependence on the magnetic Reynolds number,\ndetermined for the global size of the current sheet. On the other hand, for a\nsmall diffusion region length scale, the reconnection rate turns out to be very\nsimilar to that obtained in the Petschek model with a logarithmic dependence on\nthe magnetic Reynolds number. This means that the Petschek regime seems to be\npossible only in the case of a strongly localized conductivity corresponding to\na small scale of the diffusion region.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0111188",
"authors": [
"Nikolai V. Erkaev",
"Vladimir S. Semenov",
"Ilya V. Alexeev",
"Helfried K. Biernat"
],
"categories": [
"physics.plasm-ph",
"physics.geo-ph",
"physics.space-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1063/1.1410112",
"journal_ref": "Phys. Plasmas., 2001, vol. 8, N11, p. 4800",
"title": "Rate of steady-state reconnection in an incompressible plasma",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0111188"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "50fe0934-84be-4fa1-96f9-3116a84e2d05",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}