Energy redistribution during 2D oscillatory reconnection
Abstract
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental energy release mechanism in solar and space plasmas. However, the distribution of released magnetic energy among kinetic and internal (thermal) energy during time-dependent reconnection remains largely unexplored. This work aims to study energy conversion in magnetohydrodynamics via oscillatory reconnection (OR) at a 2D magnetic null point. Using a shock-capturing code, we identify three families of shocks: termination shocks, slow-mode deflection shocks, and Petschek-like shocks (even with uniform resistivity). We measure the time-dependent reconnection rate, finding a peak of R ≈ 0.1, consistent with a fast reconnection regime. For the first time, we track the energy conversion pathways between magnetic, kinetic and internal energy across the time-dependent reconnecting system. We find energy exchange is strongly region dependent, with shock locations dominating over the diffusion region. In the classical incompressible steady-state reconnection models, the magnetic energy is fully converted into internal and kinetic energy. In contrast, we find that in compressible time-dependent reconnection, the interchange between kinetic and internal energy dominates the system (due to the inclusion of plasma compressibility).
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BibTeX
@misc{schiavo2026energy,
title = {{Energy redistribution during 2D oscillatory reconnection}},
author = {Luiz A. C. A. Schiavo and Jordan Talbot and Gert J. J. Botha and Ben Snow and Daniel Johnson and Madeleine L. Combrinck and James A. McLaughlin},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.19461},
eprint = {2609.19461},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19461},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Energy redistribution during 2D oscillatory reconnection
AU - Luiz A. C. A. Schiavo
AU - Jordan Talbot
AU - Gert J. J. Botha
AU - Ben Snow
AU - Daniel Johnson
AU - Madeleine L. Combrinck
AU - James A. McLaughlin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/16
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.19461
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19461
AB - Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental energy release mechanism in solar and space plasmas. However, the distribution of released magnetic energy among kinetic and internal (thermal) energy during time-dependent reconnection remains largely unexplored. This work aims to study energy conversion in magnetohydrodynamics via oscillatory reconnection (OR) at a 2D magnetic null point. Using a shock-capturing code, we identify three families of shocks: termination shocks, slow-mode deflection shocks, and Petschek-like shocks (even with uniform resistivity). We measure the time-dependent reconnection rate, finding a peak of R ≈ 0.1, consistent with a fast reconnection regime. For the first time, we track the energy conversion pathways between magnetic, kinetic and internal energy across the time-dependent reconnecting system. We find energy exchange is strongly region dependent, with shock locations dominating over the diffusion region. In the classical incompressible steady-state reconnection models, the magnetic energy is fully converted into internal and kinetic energy. In contrast, we find that in compressible time-dependent reconnection, the interchange between kinetic and internal energy dominates the system (due to the inclusion of plasma compressibility).
ER -