Magnetic reconnection from a pinching process*

The linkage between large-scale plasma parameters and microscopic reconnection phenomena is an important topic of scrutiny both in space and laboratory. Here we show how global plasma parameters such as plasma beta control the enablement and progression of magnetic reconnection. A series of 1D kinetic simulations of current sheet pinching show that a non-equilibrium current sheet with different plasma beta pinch to different scales. Corresponding 2D simulations show that reconnection proceeds, if at all, in different manners depending on the initial global parameters, demonstrating their importance in controlling reconnection. These numerical predictions could be verified by two means: (i) a parametric study in well-controlled experiments, and (ii) a statistical study of pinching current sheets from space observations.