Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-c4bhq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-12T13:37:30.203Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fast magnetic field-line reconnexion in a compressible fluid. Part 2. Skewed field lines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2009

A. M. Soward
A. M. Soward
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics, University of Newcastleupon Tyne
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Petschek's model of compressible reconnexion developed in part 1 is extended to include an additional transverse magnetic field. Part of the incoming Poynting flux is degraded into kinetic energy at an intermediate wave (rotational) discontinuity. Yet more is degraded into heat and kinetic energy at a slow shock lying downstream of it. Everywhere downstream of the rotational discontinuity, the transverse magnetic field exceeds its upstream value. As a result, the total release of magnetic energy from the antiparallel components of the incoming magnetic field calculated in part 1 is decreased by a factor lying between a half and unity. The weak radial inhomogeneity exemplified by the ‘local’ similarity solution is determined by consideration of the fast and slow magneto-acoustic and Alfvén waves emitted at the neutral point. The Alfvén waves lead to a weak singularity in the vicinity of the rotational discontinuity, while a similar singularity is found in the vicinity of the outflow axis of symmetry associated with an entropy wave.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , December 1982 , pp. 415 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Chu, C. K. & Grad, H. 1966 Research Frontiers in Fluid Mechanics (ed. Seeger, R. J. & Temple, G.), p. 308. Interscience.Google Scholar
Cowley, S. W. H. 1974 J. Plasma Phys. 12, 319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hameiri, E. 1979 J. Plasma Phys. 22, 245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petschek, H. E. 1964 AAS-NASA Symposium, Physics of Solar Flares, NASA SP-50, p. 245.Google Scholar
Petschek, H. E. & Thorne, R. M. 1967 Astrophys. J. 147, 1157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Priest, E. R. & Soward, A. M. 1976 Proceedings of 71st IAU Symposium, Basic Mechanisms of Solar Activity (ed. Bumba, V. & Kleczek, J.), p. 353. Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonnerup, B. U. Ö. 1970 J. Plasma Phys. 4, 161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soward, A. M. & Priest, E. R. 1977 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 284, 369.Google Scholar
Soward, A. M. & Priest, E. R. 1982 J. Plasma Phys. 28, 335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ugai, M. 1981 J Plasma Phys. 25, 89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar