Energy Conversion during Magnetic Reconnection

Magnetic reconnection leads to the conversion of magnetic energy into kinetic and thermal energy of the plasma, resulting in heating and acceleration of plasma. We use an analytical time-dependent magnetic reconnection model and numerical simulations to investigate the energy conversion for compressible and incompressible plasma.We determine the change in the kinetic, thermal and magnetic energies in different regions of the reconnection scene and investigate the relation of these different energy forms on a macroscopic scale. A decrease in the magnetic energy inside the plasma outflow region is observed, while the regions above and below the outflow region experience a gain in magnetic energy. The regions above and below the outflow region correspond to traveling compression regions (TCRs) in observations. The plasma inside the outflow regions is characterized by enhanced thermal and kinetic energy with the thermal energy as major contributor. This numerical result is different from the analytical outcome and due to the more realistic inhomogeneous plasma density distribution that can be included in the numerical simulations.