Abstract

Temperature gradients are shown to deform and shift the magnetic islands that grow during fast collisionless reconnection when electron inertia decouples the plasma motion from the magnetic field. A kinetic electron model describes the collisionless processes during the reconnection of field lines originating in regions with different temperatures. Using a novel model of the reconnecting instability as a surface mode, the kinetic effects are treated analytically in the linear and nonlinear stages of the instability of a current-carrying low-beta plasma slab in a strong magnetic guide field.

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