Formation of electron depletion layer and parallel electric field in the separatrix region of anti-parallel magnetic reconnection

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/28/7/075203

Abstract

It is generally accepted that during collisionless magnetic reconnection, electrons flow toward the X line in the separatrix region, and then an electron depletion layer is formed. In this paper, with two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation, we investigate the characteristics of the separatrix region during magnetic reconnection. In addition to the electron depletion layer, we find that there still exists an electric field parallel to the magnetic field in the separatrix region. Because a reduced ion-to-electron mass ratio and light speed are usually used in PIC simulation models, we also change these parameters to analyze the characteristics of the separatrix region. It is found that the increase in the ion-to-electron mass ratio makes the electron depletion layer and the parallel electric field more obvious, while the influence of light speed is less pronounced.

Keywords: magnetic reconnection separatrix region electron depletion layer

Received: 16 January 2019
Revised: 12 April 2019
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	52.35.Vd	(Magnetic reconnection)
	52.65.Rr	(Particle-in-cell method)
	52.30.-q	(Plasma dynamics and flow)

Fund:

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41774169, 41527804, and 41804159), the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. QYZDJ-SSW-DQC010), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 2016395).

Corresponding Authors: Huanyu Wang
E-mail: iuwon@ustc.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Zisheng Li(李子圣), Huanyu Wang(王焕宇), Xinliang Gao(高新亮) Formation of electron depletion layer and parallel electric field in the separatrix region of anti-parallel magnetic reconnection 2019 Chin. Phys. B 28 075203

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Formation of electron depletion layer and parallel electric field in the separatrix region of anti-parallel magnetic reconnection

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