Structurally Unstable Magnetic Configurations in the Three-Dimensional Geometry

摘要

Magnetic fields play an important role in the formation and evolution of structures peculiar to space and laboratory plasma. In the evolution process of these structures, rapid dissociation of magnetic energy with its transformation into that of accelerated particles and of radiation, as well as into plasma energy, is observed. Examples of these phenomena are solar bursts, substorms in the Earth's magnetosphere, and disruptive instabilities in tokamak plasmas, the main reason of such instabilities being a physical process known as reconnection of magnetic-field lines [1-4]. The magnetic reconnection occurs in the vicinity of critical points in magnetic configurations. It is accompanied by a change in topology of the magnetic field and leads to the formation of singular distributions of the electric current in plasma (current sheets) and shock waves.