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Author(s):
T.-H. Watanabe, T. Hayashi, T. Sato, M. Yamada and H. Ji
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Title:
Modeling of Magnetic Island Formation in Magnetic Reconnection Experiment
Date of publication:
Feb. 1999
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Key words:
MHD, resistive MHD, plasma sirmulation
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Abstract:
Formation of a magnetic island found in the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) (M.Yamada, H.Ji, S.Hsu, et al., Phys. Plasmas 4, 1936 (1997)) is investigated by a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) relaxation theory and a numerical simulation. In the co-helicity injection with a mean toroidal field, the growing process of the island into a spheromak type configuration is explained by quasi-static transition of the force-free and minimum energy state to a state with larger normalized helicity. It also turns out that no magnetic island would be generated in the counter-helicity case. The MHD simulation with inhomogeneous electric resistivity agrees with experimental results, which clearly shows formation and growth of the magnetic island in a diffusion region where the reconnection takes place.
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