HR: 0830h
AN: SH31A-1092    [PDF]
TI: Hall Mediated Reconnection in Wide Current Sheets
AU: * Shay, M A
EM: shay@glue.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, IREAP Energy Research Building University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
AU: Rogers, B N
EM: barrett.n.rogers@dartmouth.edu
AF: Dartmouth College, Department of Physics and Astronomy Dartmouth College HB 6127, Hanover, NH 03755
AU: Drake, J F
EM: drake@glue.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, IREAP Energy Research Building University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
AU: Swisdak, M M
EM: swisdak@glue.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, IREAP Energy Research Building University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
AB: We examine the collisionless reconnection process in the double tearing mode system. Previous studies with very thin equilibrium current sheets found that the Hall term played a key role in allowing Alfvenic reconnection to occur, with the reconnection rate being insensitive to the system size length and the wavelength of the initial x-line perturbation. We generalize these results to systems with very wide equilibrium current sheets, examining both the scaling of the reconnection rate versus system size, and the criteria necessary to allow Hall physics to accelerate the reconnection rate. It is necessary to renormalize the reconnection rate to the magnetic field just upstream of the dissipation region in order to compare the relavent reconnection rates, and we have developed a numerical technique to do so. We find that the asymptotic reconnection rate is insensitive to both the system size and the wavelength of the initial x-line perturbation, as long as both of these values are sufficiently larger than $c/\omega_{pi}.$
DE: 2753 Numerical modeling
DE: 7519 Flares
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
SC: SPA - Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting