Abstract
Abstract. The spontaneous onset of magnetic reconnection in thin plane collisionless current sheets is shown to result from a thermal-anisotropy driven non-relativistic magnetic electron Weibel-mode, generating seed-magnetic field X-points in the centre of the current layer. The proposed mechanism is of larger generality. It also works in the presence of magnetic guide fields.
Highlights
The idea of magnetic reconnection as the main plasma process that converts stored magnetic energy into kinetic energy originates from the intuitive geometric picture of annihilating antiparallel magnetic field lines when approaching each other
In the present Letter we show that instability of the inner current layer gives rise to the self-consistent generation of local magnetic fields B = (Bx,0,Bz) transverse to the current layer
Unless a guide field is imposed from the outside on a plane collisionless homogeneous current sheet, the inner region z fewλe of the current sheet is about free of magnetic fields, while at the same time carries a current
Summary
The idea of magnetic reconnection as the main plasma process that converts stored magnetic energy into kinetic energy originates from the intuitive geometric picture of annihilating antiparallel magnetic field lines when approaching each other (see, e.g., Sweet, 1957; Parker, 1958; Dungey, 1961). In the present Letter we show that instability of the inner current layer gives rise to the self-consistent generation of local magnetic fields B = (Bx,0,Bz) transverse to the current layer Such local fields are equivalent to the generation of microscopic seed X-points in the current sheet centre and are capable of spontaneously igniting reconnection as is known from two-dimensional PIC particle simulations (cf., e.g., Zeiler et al, 2002; Scholer et al, 2003, and others). Treumann et al.: Seeding reconnection of a reconnecting current sheet is the magnetospheric tailcurrent sheet This current sheet is not ideal in the above sense as it is embedded into a quasi-dipolar field which still might preserve a weak rudimentary (normal) magnetic field component Bz pointing northward. In particular, very narrow electron layers have sometimes been reported assuming that they relate to the electron-inertial region during reconnection (for a recent discussion of the experimental prospects of resolving the electron-inertial region cf., Scudder et al, 2008)
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