Nonlinear evolution of tearing instability and dissipation in magnetic reconnection with increasing guide field

Authors: Atit Deuja (University of Alabama in Huntsville), Haihong Che (University of Alabama in Huntsville)

The role of Hall effect in fast magnetic reconnection (MR) in the presence of plasma instabilities remains poorly understood. A key unresolved issue is how guide fields influence the Hall-field evolution and the resulting fast MR mechanism when tearing instability develops. Using 2.5D particle-in-cell MR simulations with Harris current sheets across varying guide-field strengths, we find that the primary MR evolves from an initial slow laminar phase to a nonlinear spontaneous phase when the tearing instability triggers fast localized spontaneous MRs. Our results demonstrate that increasing guide field reduces both the tearing growth rate and the primary MR rate. In the weak guide-field regime ($B_g/B_0 \le 1.0$), the primary Hall magnetic field couples with that of local spontaneous MRs, producing regions of locally enhanced and weaken distorted Hall magnetic structure with an increased overall intensity. In the strong guide-field regime ($B_g/B_0 > 1.0$), the coupled Hall magnetic field weakens progressively, however the localized Hall signatures sustain fast spontaneous MRs until becoming strongly attenuated at $B_g/B_0 = 5.0$. Using electron agyrotropy ($A_g$) to identify electron diffusion regions, we discover that the mechanism breaking the electron frozen-in condition is guide-field dependent. The agyrotropic electron pressure dominates in the weak guide-field regime, whereas the convective electron inertia driven by the electron velocity shear along the separatrices through the localized Hall fields becomes dominant in the strong guide-field regime, revealing a distinct mechanism of magnetic reconnection dissipation operating in tearing-driven MR with strong guide field.