A strong limitation on the rapidity of flux-pile-up reconnection |
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| Authors: | Y E Litvinenko T G Forbes E R Priest |
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| Institution: | (1) Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, 03824-3525 Durham, NH, U.S.A.;(2) Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, University of St. Andrews, KY16 9SS St. Andrews, Scotland, UK |
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| Abstract: | The reconnection rate which can be achieved in the steady-state flux-pile-up regime is severely limited by the gas pressure of the plasma. Using the family of solutions obtained previously by Priest and Forbes, we show that the Alfvén Mach number of the plasma flowing towards the reconnection site cannot exceed  
e/(8 ln R
me), where
e and R
me are the plasma and magnetic Reynolds numbers at large distance. This limit corresponds to a very weak flux-pile-up, and it is a factor of
e slower than the maximum Petschek rate. Thus the maximum flux-pile-up reconnection rate in the corona is at least two orders of magnitude smaller than the rate implied by flare observations. |
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