HR: 1340h
AN: SM53B-0414    [Abstracts]
TI: Questioning common wisdom on magnetic reconnection on issues of (i) anti-parallel vs component merging, (ii) 3D effects, and (iii) role of lower-hybrid drift instability
AU: Malvar, J
EM: jmalvar@ucsd.edu
AF: UCSD, 950 Gilman Drive, Dept. of ECE, MC 0407, La Jolla, CA 92093-0407 United States
AU: * karimabadi, h
EM: homa@ece.ucsd.edu
AF: UCSD, 950 Gilman Drive, Dept. of ECE, MC 0407, La Jolla, CA 92093-0407 United States
AU: Daughton, W
EM: william-daughton@uiowa.edu
AF: The University of Iowa, 06 Van Allen Hall Department of Physics & Astronomy, Iowa City, IA 52242-1479 United States
AU: Quest, K
EM: quest@fleece.ucsd.edu
AF: UCSD, 950 Gilman Drive, Dept. of ECE, MC 0407, La Jolla, CA 92093-0407 United States
AB: Our recent work brings to question three generally accepted concepts on reconnection. (1) It has been thought that tearing mode always has its maximum growth at parallel propagation independent of the size of the guide field. We show that this is not the case. Further, we re-examine all previous theories of tearing saturation, both in the presence of absence of a guide field. We find no agreement with any of the previous theories. We present a new theory for nonlinear evolution of tearing that is verified by simulations. (2) There has been a rush to perform 3D full particle simulations and certain conclusions have been drawn regarding the relative role of various instabilities in reconnection onset. We show the issues with such simulations, including some of the conclusions that have been made. (3) Lower-hybrid drift instability (LHDI) has been considered for a long time as contributing to reconnection as a source of anomalous resistivity. As it turns out, LHDI can affect reconnection much stronger by creating a temperature anisotropy in the electrons within the sheet. A new model for reconnection is demonstrated.
DE: 7835 Magnetic reconnection
DE: 7843 Numerical simulation studies
DE: 2700 MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICS
DE: 2724 Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting