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Magnetic field line reconnection is a universal plasma process responsiblefor the magnetic field topology change and magnetic field energy dissipationinto charged particle heating and acceleration. In many systems, the conditionsleading to the magnetic reconnection are determined by the pre-reconnectionconfiguration of a thin layer with intense currents -- otherwise known as thethin current sheet. In this study we investigate two such systems: Earth'smagnetotail and helmet streamers in the solar corona. The pre-reconnectioncurrent sheet evolution has been intensely studied in the magnetotail, wherein-situ spacecraft observations are available; but helmet streamer currentsheets studies are fewer, due to lack of in-situ observations -- they aremostly investigated with numerical simulations and information that can besurmised from remote sensing instrumentation. Both systems exhibitqualitatively the same behavior, despite their largely different Mach numbers,much higher at the solar corona than at the magnetotail. Comparison ofspacecraft data (from the magnetotail) with numerical simulations (for helmetstreamers) shows that the pre-reconnection current sheet thinning, for bothcases, is primarily controlled by plasma pressure gradients. Scaling laws ofthe current density, magnetic field, and pressure gradients are the same forboth systems. We discuss how magnetotail observations and kinetic simulationscan be utilized to improve our understanding and modeling of the helmetstreamer current sheets.

Thin current sheet formation: comparison between Earth's magnetotail and coronal streamers