Modeling of magnetic island formation in magnetic reconnection experiment

摘要

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 cohelicity injection with a mean toroidal field, the growing process of the island into a spheromak-type configuration is explained by quasistatic 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 counterhelicity 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. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S1070-664X(99)03904-X]. [References: 17]