Factors Controlling the Statistics of Magnetic Reconnection in MHD Turbulence

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Khan, M. B., Shay, M. A., Oughton, S., Matthaeus, W. H., Haggerty, C. C., Adhikari, S., Cassak, P. A., Fordin, S., O'Donnell, D., Yang, Y., Bandyopadhyay, R., Roy, S.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Khan, M. B.
Shay, M. A.
Oughton, S.
Matthaeus, W. H.
Haggerty, C. C.
Adhikari, S.
Cassak, P. A.
Fordin, S.
O'Donnell, D.
Yang, Y.
Bandyopadhyay, R.
Roy, S.
author_facet Khan, M. B.
Shay, M. A.
Oughton, S.
Matthaeus, W. H.
Haggerty, C. C.
Adhikari, S.
Cassak, P. A.
Fordin, S.
O'Donnell, D.
Yang, Y.
Bandyopadhyay, R.
Roy, S.
contents We study the statistics of dynamical quantities associated with magnetic reconnection events embedded in a sea of strong background magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence using direct numerical simulations. We focus on the relationship of the reconnection properties to the statistics of global turbulent fields. For the first time, we show that the distribution in turbulence of reconnection rates (determined by upstream fields) is strongly correlated with the magnitude of the global turbulent magnetic field at the correlation scale. The average reconnection rates, and associated dissipation rates, during turbulence are thus much larger than predicted by using turbulent magnetic field fluctuation amplitudes at the dissipation or kinetic scales. Magnetic reconnection may therefore be playing a major role in energy dissipation in astrophysical and heliospheric turbulence.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_07502
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Factors Controlling the Statistics of Magnetic Reconnection in MHD Turbulence
Khan, M. B.
Shay, M. A.
Oughton, S.
Matthaeus, W. H.
Haggerty, C. C.
Adhikari, S.
Cassak, P. A.
Fordin, S.
O'Donnell, D.
Yang, Y.
Bandyopadhyay, R.
Roy, S.
Plasma Physics
Space Physics
We study the statistics of dynamical quantities associated with magnetic reconnection events embedded in a sea of strong background magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence using direct numerical simulations. We focus on the relationship of the reconnection properties to the statistics of global turbulent fields. For the first time, we show that the distribution in turbulence of reconnection rates (determined by upstream fields) is strongly correlated with the magnitude of the global turbulent magnetic field at the correlation scale. The average reconnection rates, and associated dissipation rates, during turbulence are thus much larger than predicted by using turbulent magnetic field fluctuation amplitudes at the dissipation or kinetic scales. Magnetic reconnection may therefore be playing a major role in energy dissipation in astrophysical and heliospheric turbulence.
title Factors Controlling the Statistics of Magnetic Reconnection in MHD Turbulence
topic Plasma Physics
Space Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07502