Abstract
A three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation of magnetic reconnection in an asymmetric configuration without a guide field and with temperature ratio Ti/Te>1 demonstrates that intense perpendicular electric fields are produced on the low-density side of the current layer where there is a strong gradient in the plasma density. The simulation shows that the 3-D reconnection rate is unaffected by these intense electric fields, that the electron current layer near the X line remains coherent and does not break up, but that localized regions of strong energy dissipation exist along the low-density separatrices. Near the X line the dominant term in the generalized Ohm's law for the reconnection electric field remains the off-diagonal electron pressure gradient ∂Pexy/∂x. On the low-beta separatrix, however, the anomalous drag −⟨δnδEy⟩/⟨n⟩ makes an equally important contribution to that of the pressure gradient to the average Ey field.
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