HR: 14:00h
AN: SH32B-02 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Reconnection in Thin Current Sheets With Sheared Magnetic Field: Three-Dimensional Particle Simulations
AU: * Scholer, M
EM: mbs@mpe.mpg.de
AF: Max-Planck-Inst. f. extraterr. Physik, P.O. Box 1312, Garching, 85741 Germany
AU: Sidorenko, I
EM: irina.sidorenko@ipp.mpg.de
AF: Max-Planck-Inst. f. extraterr. Physik, P.O. Box 1312, Garching, 85741 Germany
AU: Jaroschek, C H
EM: cjarosch@mpe.mpg.de
AF: Max-Planck-Inst. f. extraterr. Physik, P.O. Box 1312, Garching, 85741 Germany
AU: Treumann, R A
EM: tre@mpe.mpg.de
AF: Max-Planck-Inst. f. extraterr. Physik, P.O. Box 1312, Garching, 85741 Germany
AB: Reconnection in thin current sheets is investigated by means of three-dimensional full particle simulations. Reconnection is allowed to develop out of the numerical noise. We do not impose symmetry about the midplane and we use a relatively high mass ratio of $m_i/m_e=160$. The initial state is a Harris current sheet with a superimposed guide field. The lower hybrid drift instability develops at the boundary of the current layer with wave vectors perpendicular to the local magnetic field. This leads to an interference pattern of the inductive electric field in the center of the current sheet. Acceleration of the electrons by the inductive electric field leads to a patchy appearance of localized neutral lines on a time scale of about 10 inverse ion gyro-frequencies. These neutral lines merge and reconnection becomes eventually two-dimensional. Only in the case of exactly 90 degree shear reconnection is essentially two-dimensional from the beginning. We have determined the dependence of the reconnection onset time on the amount of shear, and we will present a run with a small initial magnetic field component normal to the current sheet.
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
DE: 7839 Nonlinear phenomena
DE: 7843 Numerical simulation studies
DE: 7871 Waves and instabilities
SC: SPA - Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting