Hall MHD Modeling of Two-dimensional Reconnection: Application to MRX Experiment
Authors: V.S. Lukin and S.C. Jardin
Date of PPPL Report: January 2003
Published by: Physics of Plasmas 10 (August 2003) 3131-3138.
A two-dimensional resistive Hall magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code is used to investigate the dynamical evolution of driven reconnection in the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX). The initial conditions and dimensionless parameters of the simulation are set to be similar to the experimental values. We successfully reproduce many features of the time evolution of magnetic configurations for both co- and counter-helicity reconnection in MRX. The Hall effect is shown to be important during the early dynamic X-phase of MRX reconnection, while effectively negligible during the late "steady-state" Y-phase, when plasma heating takes place. Based on simple symmetry considerations, an experiment to directly measure the Hall effect in MRX configuration is proposed and numerical evidence for the expected outcome is given.