STRUCTURE OF THE DISSIPATION REGION DURING COLLISIONLESS MAGNETIC RECONNECTION

Collisionless magnetic reconnection is studied using a 2 1/2-dimension al hybrid code including Hall dynamics and electron inertia. The simul ations reveal that the dissipation region develops a two-scale structu re: an inner electron region and an outer ion region. Close to the X l ine is a region with a scale of c/omega(pe), the electron collisionles s skin depth, where the electron flows completely dominate those of th e ions and the frozen-in magnetic flux constraint is broken. Outside o f this region and encompassing the rest of the dissipation region, whi ch scales like C/omega(pi), the ion inertial length, is the Hall regio n where the electrons are frozen-in to the magnetic field but the ions are not, allowing the two species to flow at different velocities. Th e decoupling of electron and ion motion in the dissipation region has important implications for the rate of magnetic reconnection in collis ionless plasma: the ions are not constrained to flow through the very narrow region where the frozen-in constraint is broken so that ion flu x into the dissipation region is large. For the simulations which have been completed to date, the resulting rate of reconnection is a subst antial fraction of the Alfven velocity and is controlled by the ions, not the electrons. The dynamics of the ions is found to be inherently nonfluid-like, with multiple ion beams present both at the X line and at the downstream boundary between the inflow and outflow plasma. The reconnection rate is only slightly affected by the temperature of the inflowing ions and in particular the structure of the dissipation regi on is controlled by the ion inertial length C/omega(pi) and not the io n Larmor radius based on the incoming ion temperature.