Energy budget of the reconnection process

摘要

The relevance of magnetic reconnection in the frame of space plasmas is mainly dueto the energy conversion taking place during this process. We address our investigationswithin this article to the energy budget of the reconnection process and focus our researchon the conversion of magnetic energy into kinetic plasma energy and the spatial redistribution of the energy density. Using a time-dependent MHD reconnection model foran incompressible plasma, we derive the amount of released kinetic plasma energy andidentify regions of enhanced an decreased magnetic field energy. The decrease ofmagnetic field energy in the wake of the outflowing plasma regions is compensated by afield energy enhancement above and below the outflow regions. This field energy is twotimes higher than the kinetic energy inside the plasma flow regions and gets removed fromthe reconnection site together with the plasma flow.