Fig. 2
From: Reconnection and interchange instability in the near magnetotail
Characteristic parameters of stable and unstable runs in PIC simulations as a function of the ion/electron mass ratio. Characteristic variables at tearing onset or final stable states: a current sheet half-thickness L z , and b b=B z m i n /B 0, for various mass ratios and deformation amplitudes, a=7.5 (yellow), a=5 (red), a=3.33 (blue), a=2.5 (green), and a=1.25 (purple). Crosses correspond to stable cases and vertical bars to unstable ones with the height of the bar indicating the magnitude of possible errors estimated from taking values at adjacent times t o ±2. The dashed lines indicate power law dependences proportional to (m i /m e )−1/4 for L z and b, and (m i /m e )−1/2 for b L z . Modified from Figure four of Liu et al. (2014)