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Fig. 3 | Earth, Planets and Space

Fig. 3

From: Reconnection and interchange instability in the near magnetotail

Fig. 3

Entropy characteristics of stable and unstable cases in PIC simulations. Entropy characteristics of a stable (a=3.33, m i /m e =400, left) and two unstable cases (a=5, m i /m e =400 and a=7.5, m i /m e =1836, right): (top) selected field lines and current density (color), (bottom) variation of the entropy function S defined by (1), as function of the flux variable A. The times t=78 and t=58 for the two unstable cases represent times shortly after the identified onset times but before X-line formation. Labels a–d denote characteristic points in the configuration. Modified from Figure nine of Liu et al. (2014)

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