The 3-D Structure, Evolution, and Dissipation of Reconnection-Driven Flow-Bursts
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Marc Swisdak1, James Frederick Drake1, Paul Cassak2 and Tai Phan3, (1)University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, United States, (2)West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, United States, (3)University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
Abstract:
The structure of magnetic reconnection-driven flow-bursts (also known as dipolarization fronts), their evolution, and their dissipation are explored with large-scale, 3-D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Flow-bursts resulting from 3-D reconnection with a finite length x-line form a front as they propagate into the downstream medium (e.g., the magnetotail plasma sheet). A large pressure increase ahead of the front, due to reflected and transmitted ions, slows the front so that its velocity is well below the velocity of the ambient ions in the core of the burst. As a result, the front slows and diverts the high-speed flow into the ion drift direction of the downstream current layer. The consequence is that the front acts as a thermalization site for the ion bulk flow. The evolution of the front, and in particular the development of Rayleigh-Taylor/interchange-type instabilities, are consequences of the magnetotail-like geometry and are in turn influenced by the velocity shear generated by the front's motion.
