Thoughts On Reconnection

  • Harry E. Petschek
Conference paper

Abstract

It was clearly recognized in the early sixties that rapid magnetic field line reconnection was required in order to account for the fast energy release in solar flares and also to cause convection in the magnetosphere and ionosphere. However, reconnection mechanisms based only on diffusion of magnetic fields due to electrical resistivity were much too slow to provide the required rates. It was suggested [Petschek, 1964] that slow and intermediate MHD waves would appreciably decrease the size of the diffusion region and therefore increase the rate of reconnection.

Keywords

Diffusion Region Stagnation Flow Reconnection Rate Reconnection Region Slow Shock 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1999

Authors and Affiliations

  • Harry E. Petschek
    • 1
  1. 1.Boston UniversityLexingtonUSA

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