Numerical study of Hall effects on counter-helicity spheromak merging by two-dimensional Hall-MHD simulations

Abstract

Hall effects on counter-helicity spheromak merging were investigated by two-dimensional MHD and Hall-MHD simulations of merging two axisymmetric toroidal flux tubes. In Hall-MHD cases, the structure of the reconnection current sheet and reconnection outflow are modified from the MHD case due to the Hall effect. We compared two cases (called “case-O” and “case-I”) of counter-helicity merging, which are distinguished by the polarity of toroidal magnetic fluxes. Radial motion of the reconnection X-point is controlled by poloidal electron flow accompanying the toroidal flux of the merging two spheromaks, and this creates a large difference in the current sheet and flow structure between the two cases of the Hall-MHD regime. The radial shift of the reconnection X-point depending on the polarity of toroidal magnetic flux of the spheromaks breaks the symmetry between the two cases. It was also found that there widely exists separation of ion and electron flow which are affected by the modification of the current sheet structure due to the radial shift of the X-point in the downstream side of the merging, and its spatial scale of the distribution of the Hall electric field is larger than the ion skin depth.