Influence of the Hall effect and electron inertia in collisionless magnetic reconnection

Abstract

We study the role of the Hall current and electron inertia in collisionless magnetic reconnection within the framework of full two-fluid MHD. At spatial scales smaller than the electron inertial length, a topological change of magnetic field lines exclusively due to electron inertia becomes possible. Assuming stationary conditions, we derive a theoretical scaling for the reconnection rate, which is simply proportional to the Hall parameter. Using a pseudo-spectral code with no dissipative effects, our numerical results confirm this theoretical scaling. In particular, for a sequence of different Hall parameter values, our numerical results show that the width of the current sheet is independent of the Hall parameter while its thickness is of the order of the electron inertial range, thus confirming that the stationary reconnection rate is proportional to the Hall parameter.

References in corpus (6)

• Instability of current sheets and formation of plasmoid chains
• Two-scale structure of the electron dissipation region during collisionless magnetic reconnection
• Onset of Fast Reconnection in Hall Magnetohydrodynamics Mediated by the Plasmoid Instability
• On energy conservation in extended magnetohydrodynamics
• Two-fluid turbulence including electron inertia
• Effects of electron inertia in collisionless magnetic reconnection

Cited by in corpus (7)

• On the Value of the Reconnection Rate
• Exact law for homogeneous compressible Hall magnetohydrodynamics turbulence
• von Kármán-Howarth equation for three-dimensional two-fluid plasmas
• Exact scaling laws for helical three-dimensional two-fluid turbulent plasmas
• Energy-Casimir, dynamically accessible, and Lagrangian stability of extended magnetohydrodynamic equilibria
• Fast Magnetic Reconnection induced by Resistivity Gradients in 2D Magnetohydrodynamics
• Incompressible Extended Magnetohydrodynamics Waves: Implications of Electron Inertia