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Volume 53 Supplement 6

Special Issue: Magnetic Reconnection in Space and Laboratory Plasmas

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Collisionless driven reconnection in an open system

Earth, Planets and Space volume 53, pages 439–445 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

Particle simulation studies of collisionless driven reconnection in an open system are presented. Collisionless reconnection evolves in two steps in accordance with the formation of two current layers, i.e., an ion current layer in the early ion phase and an electron current layer in the late electron phase. After the electron current layer is formed inside the ion current layer, the system relaxes gradually to a steady state when convergent plasma flow is driven by an external electric field with a narrow input window. On the other hand, when the convergent plasma flow is driven from the wide input window, magnetic reconnection takes place in an intermittent manner, due to the frequent formation of magnetic islands in the vicinity of neutral sheet.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki, 509-5292, Japan

    Ritoku Horiuchi & Tetsuya Sato

  2. The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Toki, 509-5292, Japan

    Ritoku Horiuchi, Wenbing Pei & Tetsuya Sato

Authors
  1. Ritoku Horiuchi
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  2. Wenbing Pei
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  3. Tetsuya Sato
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Correspondence to Ritoku Horiuchi.

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Horiuchi, R., Pei, W. & Sato, T. Collisionless driven reconnection in an open system. Earth Planet Sp 53, 439–445 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03353254

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03353254

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