ANALYTIC SOLUTIONS OF THE MAGNETIC ANNIHILATION AND RECONNECTION PROBLEMS .1. PLANAR FLOW PROFILES

The phenomena of steady-state magnetic annihilation and reconnection i n the vicinity of magnetic nulls are considered. It is shown that reco nnective solutions can be derived by superposing the velocity and magn etic fields of simple magnetic annihilation models. These solutions co ntain most of the previous models for magnetic merging and reconnectio n, as well as introducing several new solutions. The various magnetic dissipation mechanisms are classified by examining the scaling of the Ohmic diffusion rate with plasma resistivity. Reconnection solutions g enerally allow more favorable ''fast'' dissipation scalings than annih ilation models. In particular, reconnection models involving the advec tion of planar field components have the potential to satisfy the seve re energy release requirements of the solar flare. The present paper i s mainly concerned with magnetic fields embedded in strictly planar fl ows-a discussion of the more complicated three-dimensional flow patter ns is presented in Part II [Phys. Plasmas 4, 110 (1997)]. (C) 1997 Ame rican Institute of Physics.