Measurement of the transverse Spitzer resistivity during collisional magnetic reconnection

Abstract

Measurement of the transverse resistivity was carried out in a reconnecting current sheet where the mean free path for the Coulomb collision is smaller than the thickness of the sheet. In a collisional neutral sheet without a guide field, the transverse resistivity is directly related to the reconnection rate. A remarkable agreement is found between the measured resistivity and the classical value derived by Spitzer. In his calculation the transverse resistivity for the electrons is higher than the parallel resistivity by a factor of 1.96. The measured values have verified this theory to within 30% errors.