Reconnection rates in driven magnetic reconnection

Using resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations, we investigate the influence of various parameters on the reconnection rate in two scenarios of magnetic reconnection. The first scenario consists of the "Newton Challenge" problem [Birn , Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L06105 (2005)]. In this scenario, reconnection is initiated in a plane Harris-type current sheet by temporally limited, spatially varying, inflow of magnetic flux. The second scenario consists of the well-studied island coalescence problem. This scenario starts from an equilibrium containing periodic magnetic islands with parallel current filaments. Due to the attraction between parallel currents, pairs of islands may move toward each other, forming a current sheet in between. This leads to reconnection and ultimately the merging of islands. In either scenario, magnetic reconnection may be considered as being driven by external or internal forcing. Consistent with that interpretation we find that in either case the maximum reconnection rate (electric field) depends approximately linearly on the maximum driving electric field, when other parameters remain unchanged. However, this can be understood mostly from the change of characteristic background parameters; particularly, the increase of the magnetic field strength in the inflow region due to the added magnetic flux. This interpretation is consistent with the result that the maximum of the reconnection electric field is assumed significantly later (tens of Alfven times) than the maximum driving and typically does not match the instantaneous driving electric field. Furthermore, the reconnection rate also depends on the resistivity and the time scale of the driving. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.