Chirped Plasmoid Instability in 3D Torsional Spine Reconnection

Clicks: 11
ID: 329534
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #1,211 of 1,339 articles by views in monthly notices of the royal astronomical society

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 1,339 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract Magnetic reconnection at three-dimensional (3D) magnetic null points is fundamental to solar flares and magnetospheric substorms. While the plasmoid instability in two-dimensional current sheets is well understood, its analytical treatment in intrinsically 3D null-point geometries is lacking. We present a reduced magnetohydrodynamic (RMHD) formulation for the torsional spine null, where a cylindrical current channel around the spine drives reconnection. The guide field component varies linearly along the spine, causing the local Alfvén speed to increase with distance from the null and breaking translational symmetry. This gives rise to the chirped plasmoid instability: a chain of magnetic islands whose normalized growth rate varies inversely with axial distance, quantified by a dimensionless chirp parameter significantly larger than unity. A multiple-scale WKB analysis yields an axial-coordinate-dependent tearing dispersion relation, confirming the continuous spatial variation of growth rate and wavenumber. We also analyze magnetic helicity evolution, showing that the helicity injection rate increases linearly with axial distance, resulting in a geometric enhancement of the total plasmoid helicity relative to two-dimensional estimates. The helicity flux from the spine into the fan plane via torsional Alfvén waves is derived, providing a quantitative criterion for cross-null plasmoid seeding. This work constitutes the first analytical theory of the 3D plasmoid instability in a torsional spine geometry, with direct implications for interpreting high-resolution solar observations.
Reference Key
openalex_W7214112498 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Mahboub Hosseinpour
Are you one of these authors? Claim your profile
Journal monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stag1737
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1737
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.