TURBULENT RECONNECTION IN RELATIVISTIC PLASMAS AND EFFECTS OF COMPRESSIBILITY

Abstract

We report turbulence effects on magnetic reconnection in relativistic plasmas\nusing 3-dimensional relativistic resistive magnetohydrodynamics simulations. We\nfound reconnection rate became independent of the plasma resistivity due to\nturbulence effects similarly to non-relativistic cases. We also found\ncompressible turbulence effects modified the turbulent reconnection rate\npredicted in non-relativistic incompressible plasmas; The reconnection rate\nsaturates and even decays as the injected velocity approaches to the Alfv\\'en\nvelocity. Our results indicate the compressibility cannot be neglected when\ncompressible component becomes about half of incompressible mode occurring when\nthe Alfv\\'en Mach number reaches about $0.3$. The obtained maximum reconnection\nrate is around $0.05$ to $0.1$, which will be able to reach around $0.1$ to\n$0.2$ if injection scales are comparable to the sheet length.\n