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Particle Hall‐MHD simulation of collisionless reconnection: Ion gyro‐radius correction
Author(s) -
Yin L.,
Winske D.,
Gary S. P.,
Birn J.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2000gl012797
Subject(s) - magnetohydrodynamics , physics , test particle , hall effect , gyroradius , momentum (technical analysis) , ion , magnetic reconnection , current sheet , computational physics , radius , classical mechanics , mechanics , magnetic field , quantum mechanics , computer security , computer science , finance , economics
Fluid‐ion dynamics from a Hall‐MHD calculation and test ions that are advanced in Hall‐MHD fields are compared to particle‐ion dynamics from a hybrid simulation of two‐dimensional reconnection in a thin current sheet. These comparisons demonstrate that off‐diagonal terms of the ion pressure tensor are important to correctly model the ion out‐of‐plane momentum transport from the X point. These effects can be efficiently modeled in Hall‐MHD simulations by advancing test ions in the Hall‐MHD fields, accumulating the pressure tensor onto the spatial grid, and modifying the ion momentum equation. With ion gyro‐radius corrections, the “particle Hall‐MHD” simulation is shown to model accurately the ion out‐of‐plane momentum transport from the X point and the reconnection rate comparison with the hybrid simulation is improved.