Fig. 1From: Reconnection and interchange instability in the near magnetotailCharacteristics of stable and unstable runs in PIC simulations. Characteristics of stable (left column, c, e, g) and unstable runs (right column, d, f, h). a The initial state and b the corresponding entropy function S(x), which are the same for all runs. The following two panels show the magnetic field and current density structure of two runs with m i /m e =400, c for a=3.33 after relaxation into a new equilibrium, and d for a=5 after the onset of reconnection. The third and bottom panels show the characteristic current sheet half-thickness L z and the B z values as function of time, evaluated at the location where B z reaches a local minimum at z=0, near x∼−13, for (e, g) a=2.5 and (f, h) a=5. Modified from Figure two of Liu et al. (2014) Back to article page