Collisionless forced magnetic reconnection in an electron-positron plasma

Collisionless forced magnetic reconnection in an electron-positron plasma, where the mechanism of the magnetic field breaking is inertia of plasma particles, is considered. The model under analytical investigation is the so-called Taylor problem: a tearing stable slab plasma equilibrium with a magnetic field reversal is subjected to a small-amplitude boundary perturbation that drives magnetic reconnection at the neutral surface within the plasma. It is shown that forced collisionless reconnection has a direct analogy with its collisional (resistive) counterpart investigated by T. S. Hahm and R. M. Kulsrud [Phys. Fluids 28, 2412 (1985)], with the role of the inverse Lundquist number S-1 << 1 of the resistive magnetohydrodynamics now being played by the normalized inertia skin depth d equivalent to c/w(p)a << 1 (w(p) is the electron-positron plasma frequency, and a is a width of the plasma slab). The transition between the collisionless and resistive regimes of forced reconnection is also considered. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.