Extension of the electron dissipation region in collisionless hall magnetohydrodynamics reconnection

Brian P. Sullivan, A. Bhattacharjee, Yi Min Huang

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9 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper presents Sweet-Parker type scaling arguments in the context of hyper-resistive Hall magnetohydrodynamics. Numerical experiments suggest that both cusplike and modestly more extended geometries are realizable. However, the length of the electron dissipation region, which is taken as a parameter by several recent studies, is found to depend explicitly on the level of hyper-resistivity. Furthermore, although hyper-resistivity can produce more extended electron dissipation regions, the length of the region remains smaller than one ion skin depth for the largest values of hyper-resistivity considered here, significantly shorter than current sheets seen in many recent kinetic studies. The length of the electron dissipation region is found to depend on electron inertia as well, scaling like (me / mi) 3/8. However, the thickness of the region appears to scale similarly, so that the aspect ratio is at most very weakly dependent on (m e/mi).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number102111
JournalPhysics of Plasmas
Volume16
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Condensed Matter Physics

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