AbstractA model of time-dependent Petschek-type reconnection of arbitrary strong magnetic fields is presented where all necessary relativistic effects are taken into account. Reconnection is supposed to be initiated due to a local decrease of the plasma conductivity inside the diffusion region, which results in the appearance of an electric field along the X-line. This electric field is considered as a given arbitrary function of time. Then all MHD parameters as well as the shape of the moving Petschek-type shocks are obtained from the ideal relativistic MHD equations written in terms of 4-magnetic field and 4-velocity vectors as suggested by Lichnerowicz. The analysis is restricted to a symmetric current sheet geometry and to the case of weak reconnection, where the reconnection rate is supposed to be a small parameter. The solution obtained extends the well-known Petschek model for the steady-state case to incorporate relativistic effects of impulsive reconnection. It is shown that the plasma is accelerated at the slow shocks to ultrarelativistic velocities with high Lorentz-factors only for current layers embedded into strong magnetic fields and low-beta plasmas. In this case the plasma is strongly compressed and heated while the normal size of the outflow region with the accelerated plasma becomes very small.


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    Titel :

    Relativistic unsteady Petschek-type model of magnetic reconnection


    Beteiligte:
    Tolstykh, Yu.V. (Autor:in) / Semenov, V.S. (Autor:in) / Biernat, H.K. (Autor:in) / Heyn, M.F. (Autor:in) / Penz, T. (Autor:in)

    Erschienen in:

    Advances in Space Research ; 40 , 10 ; 1538-1542


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2007-01-07


    Format / Umfang :

    5 pages




    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Englisch





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