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Fractal Reconnection in Solar and Stellar Environments

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Magnetic Reconnection

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library ((ASSL,volume 427))

Abstract

Recent space based observations of the Sun revealed that magnetic reconnection is ubiquitous in the solar atmosphere, ranging from small scale reconnection (observed as nanoflares) to large scale one (observed as long duration flares or giant arcades). Often the magnetic reconnection events are associated with mass ejections or jets, which seem to be closely related to multiple plasmoid ejections from fractal current sheet. The bursty radio and hard X-ray emissions from flares also suggest the fractal reconnection and associated particle acceleration. We shall discuss recent observations and theories related to the plasmoid-induced-reconnection and the fractal reconnection in solar flares, and their implication to reconnection physics and particle acceleration. Recent findings of many superflares on solar type stars that has extended the applicability of the fractal reconnection model of solar flares to much a wider parameter space suitable for stellar flares are also discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the Sweet-Parker sheet, we find \(L/V _{A} =\delta /V _{inflow} =\delta ^{2}/\eta = t_{d}.\)

  2. 2.

    Here Shibata and Tanuma (2001) assumed that the condition of the secondary instability was \((t_{A}t_{d})^{1/2} < L/V _{A}\). If we use more rigorous condition \((t_{A}t_{d})^{1/2} < aL/V _{A}\), where \(a \simeq 4\) (see above), we find \(A = (ab)^{2/3}S^{-1/6}\). Note that Shibata and Tanuma (2001) assumed a = 1 and b = 6. If we use \(a = 4,b = 2\pi = 6.28\), then \(A \simeq 0.05\) for R m  = 1013. In this case, we find n = 12 for the condition that the sheet thickness becomes less than the ion Larmor radius (\(\sim 100\) cm), i.e., \(\delta _{n}/L < 10^{-7}\) and the initial sheet thickness and length are 108 and 109 cm.

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Acknowledgements

At first, we would like to thank Professor Eugene N. Parker for introducing us to the fascinating field of magnetic reconnection for many years. One of the authors (KS) remember that Prof. Parker said to KS “What an interesting talk !” just after KS gave a talk on “Plasmoid-induced-reconnection and fractal reconnection” in MR2000 conference held in Tokyo in 2000. This comment encouraged KS very much, and it became the primary motivation why this article was written. We also would like to thank Amitava Bhattacharjee, Hantao Ji, K. Daughton, N.F. Loureiro, Hiroyuki Maehara, Naoto Nishizuka, Yuta Notsu, Takuya Shibayama, Takuya Takahashi for allowing us to use figures of their papers and for their help for preparing the manuscript, Paul Cassak for giving us various useful comments as the referee, and Alkendra Singh for improving our English. This work is supported by the Grant-in-Aids from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (Nos. 25287039). ST acknowledges support by the Research Fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

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  1. Kwasan and Hida Observatories, Kyoto University, Yamashina, Kyoto, 607-8471, Japan

    K. Shibata & S. Takasao

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  1. K. Shibata
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  2. S. Takasao
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Correspondence to K. Shibata .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. INPE, São José dos Campos, Brazil

    Walter Gonzalez

  2. University of Chicago, CHICAGO, Illinois, USA

    Eugene Parker

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Shibata, K., Takasao, S. (2016). Fractal Reconnection in Solar and Stellar Environments. In: Gonzalez, W., Parker, E. (eds) Magnetic Reconnection. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 427. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26432-5_10

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