Magnetic Reconnection from a Turbulence Perspective.

The inter-relationship between turbulence and magnetic reconnection has been the focus of increasing scrutiny, with significant research on the statistics of reconnection as an element of turbulence, the generation of turbulence during reconnection, and the effect of reconnection on the cascade of energy. However, a basic question is largely unexplored: What are the energy spectral features of laminar magnetic reconnection, independent of self-generated turbulence? In this study, we perform a 2.5D kinetic particle in cell (PIC) simulation of magnetic reconnection with periodic boundary conditions to explore the spectral properties of the system. Most notably, we find that quasi-steady and laminar magnetic reconnection exhibits a power law consistent with the Kolmogorov law of turbulence. The magnetic energy at ion inertial length scales is found to increase as reconnection evolves, stabilize during quasi-steady reconnection, and then decay as the reconnection slows. In the process, reconnection isotropizes the distribution of magnetic energy in k-space. Implications for the cascade properties of reconnection will be discussed.