SM13B-4160:
Bursty Magnetic Reconnection Under Slow Shock Generated Whistler Waves

Monday, 15 December 2014
Zhi-Wei Ma, LN Wu, Lj Li and LC Wang, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Abstract:
Nonlinear dynamics of magnetic reconnection with an external sub-Alfvenic parallel shear flow is investigated by using two-dimensional compressible Hall MHD simulation. Two pairs of slow shocks in the inflow region are generated by the sub-Alfvenic shear flow in the MHD simulation [Li et al., JGR, 2012]. With inclusion of Hall effects, it is found that whistler waves are generated in the downstream region of slow shocks. The whistler waves propagating toward the reconnection region drive a large bursty enhancement in magnetic reconnection during the decaying phase of the spontaneous magnetic reconnection.