Numerical study of magnetic reconnection possibly occurring near heliospheric current sheet

Abstract

The third-order accurate upwind compact difference scheme has been applied for the numerical study of the magnetic reconnection driven by a plasma blob impacting the heliospheric current sheet, under the framework of the two-dimensional compressible magnetohydrodynamics. The results show that the driven reconnection near the current sheet could occur in about 10–30 min for the interplanetary high magnetic Reynolds number, R M = 2000–10,000, a stable magnetic reconnection structure can be formed in hour order of magnitude, and there appear some basic properties such as the multiple X-line reconnections, vortex structures, filament current systems, splitting and collapse of the high-density plasma blob. These results are helpful in understanding and identifying the magnetic reconnection phenomena possibly occurring near the heliospheric current sheets.