Fast magnetic reconnection with small shock angles

Abstract

The Petschek (1964) mechanism, generalized by Priest and Forbes (1986), was studied using a 2D incompressible MHD simulation. Various regimes predicted by Priest and Forbes are obtained for different boundary conditions on the outflow boundary. They include a weak fast-mode expansion, slow-mode compression, slow-mode expansion, and a hybrid regime of fast-mode and slow-mode expansion. The width and the length of the current sheet for different parameters obtained in the simulations were found to be consistent with theoretical values.