Reconnection of nonidentical flux tubes

Abstract

An investigation of the three‐dimensional reconnection of flux tubes at low twist and of flux tubes with nonequal axial fluxes is presented. This is a generalization of the earlier investigation of highly twisted, identical flux tubes in the work of Linton et al. (2001). This generalization is important for determining how robust the three types of reconnection found in that study are and therefore how applicable they are to common space and laboratory magnetic field interactions. It is found that the merge reconnection of low twist tubes of nonequal flux occurs much as it does for the high twist, identical flux tubes. The slingshot of low twist, identical tubes is also much the same as for high twist, identical tubes. The slingshot of tubes of unequal flux is, however, different than that of identical tubes: the smaller tube reconnects with only the outer shell of the larger tube, and so it is left hanging off the unreconnected, core flux of the larger flux tube. Finally, it is found, surprisingly, that the tunnel occurs as easily for tubes of nonequal flux as it does for identical tubes.