Large-scale energy budget of impulsive magnetic reconnection: Theory and simulation.

We evaluate the large-scale energy budget of magnetic reconnection utilizing an analytical time-dependent impulsive reconnection model and a numerical 2-D MHD simulation. With the generalization to compressible plasma, we can investigate changes in the thermal, kinetic, and magnetic energies. We study these changes in three different regions: (a) the region defined by the outflowing plasma (outflow region, OR), (b) the region of compressed magnetic fields above/below the OR (traveling compression region, TCR), and (c) the region trailing the OR and TCR (wake).

The energy-based scaling of a thin current sheet: Case study.

The influence of average plasma energy E~ on the half thickness of a thin current sheet (TCS) is investigated for three cases of TCSs crossings. The value of was estimated from the magnetic field data by means of Cluster observations. The obtained scaling values for TCSs, Z~=ℓ/ρT, where is the thermal Larmor radius, were compared with the scaling Zμ=22E~/T, where E~ and are the average plasma energy and the temperature of plasma, which assumes a specific dynamics (conservation of magnetic flux through the trajectory segment) of the current carriers.