Fast magnetic reconnection via jets and current microsheets

Abstract

Numerical simulations of highly nonlinear magnetic reconnection provide evidence of ultrathin current microsheets. These small-scale sheets are formed by strong exhaust jets from a primary large-scale current layer. The overall size of the secondary microsheet is determined by the thickness of the primary sheet. Preliminary scalings show that the thickness of the microsheet varies linearly with the plasma resistivity. This scaling suggests that microsheets may provide fast reconnection sites in magnetically complex plasmas such as the solar corona and planetary magnetospheres.