Statistics of magnetic reconnection in two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

SERVIDIO, S., MATTHAEUS, W.H., DMITRUK, P., SHAY, M, CASSAK, P., WAN, M.

San Francisco

Conferencia; American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010; 2010

The nonlinear dynamics of magnetic reconnection in turbulence is investigated through direct numerical simulations of decaying, incompressible, two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics. Systematic analysis of these numerical simulations reveals the presence of a large number of X-type neutral points where magnetic reconnection occurs. We examine the statistical properties of this ensemble of reconnection events that are spontaneously generated by turbulence. It is found that is possible to describe the reconnection process in turbulence as a generalized local Sweet-Parker process in which the parameters are locally controlled by the turbulence cascade, thus providing a step toward reconciling classical turbulence analysis with reconnection theory. The associated reconnection rates are distributed over a wide range of values and scales with the geometry of the diffusion region. This general description of reconnection may be useful for laboratory and space plasmas, where the presence of turbulence plays a crucial role.