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SEQUENCE:0
UID:UW-Physics-Event-4129
DTSTART:20160328T170000Z
DTEND:20160328T180000Z
DTSTAMP:20260415T051659Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20160314T143014Z
LOCATION:1153 Mechanical Engineering
SUMMARY:Magnetic Reconnection Onset\, Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 9
 22) Seminar\, Prof. Nuno Loureiro\, MIT
DESCRIPTION:The recent realization that Sweet-Parker current sheets ar
 e violently unstable to the secondary tearing (plasmoid) instability i
 mplies that such current sheets cannot occur in real systems. This sug
 gests that\, in order to understand the onset of magnetic reconnection
 \, one needs to consider the growth of the tearing instability in a cu
 rrent layer as it is being formed. We present such an analysis in the 
 context of nonlinear resistive MHD for a generic time-dependent equili
 brium representing a gradually forming current sheet. It is shown that
  two onset regimes\, single-island and multi-island\, are possible\, d
 epending on the rate of current sheet formation. A simple model is use
 d to compute the criterion for transition between these two regimes\, 
 as well as the reconnection onset time and the current sheet parameter
 s at that moment. For typical solar corona parameters this model yield
 s results consistent with observations.
URL:https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/?id=4129
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