Bifurcation analysis of magnetic reconnection in Hall-MHD-systems

• DOI: 10.1016/j.physd.2005.06.003
• Publication Date: 2005-07-02T10:48:06Z
• Authors: Holger Homann; Rainer Grauer
• Keywords: Center manifold; Magnetic Reynolds number; Tearing; Ohm's law

Abstract The influence of the Hall-term on the width of the magnetic islands of the tearing-mode is examined. We applied the center manifold (CMF) theory to a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)-system. The MHD-system was chosen to be incompressible and includes in addition to viscosity the Hall-term in Ohm’s law. For certain values of physical parameters the corresponding center manifold is two-dimensional and therefore the original partial differential equations could be reduced to a two-dimensional system of ordinary ones. This amplitude equations exhibit a pitchfork-bifurcation which corresponds to the occurrence of the tearing-mode. Eigenvalue-problems and linear equations due to the center manifold reduction were solved numerically with the Arpack++-library. An important result of this analysis is the growth of the tearing mode island width by increasing the Hall-parameter, a feature which has been observed in recent numerical simulations of collisionless reconnection.