Statistical association of discontinuities and reconnection in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

GRECO, A., SERVIDIO, S., MATTHAEUS, W.H., OSMAN, K., DMITRUK, P.

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION

Año: 2011 vol. 115 p. 165691 - 165699

0148-0227

Using high Reynolds number simulations 7 of two-dimensional 8 magnetohydrodynamic (2D MHD) turbulence as a test case, a statistical as9 sociation between tangential discontinuities and magnetic reconnection is demon10 strated. Methods employed in previous studies on discontinuities and recon11 nection in turbulence are used to identify sets of possible reconnection events 12 along a one-dimensional path through the turbulent field, emulating exper13 imental sampling by single detector in a high speed flow. The goal is to de14 velop numerical algorithms for identifying candidate reconnection events in 15 space physics applications. We find that sets of strong discontinuities, iden16 tified using the normalized partial variance of vector increments, include an 17 increasing fraction of reconnection events as the threshold for identification 18 grows. Magnetic discontinuities become almost purely reconnection events 19 for high thresholds, with values generally higher than six standard deviations.