Fast magnetic reconnection involving non-MHD microscale physics is believed to underlie both solar eruptions and laboratory plasma current disruptions. While there is extensive research on both the MHD macroscale physics and the non-MHD microscale physics, the process by which large-scale MHD couples to the microscale physics is not well understood. An MHD instability cascade from a kink to a secondary Rayleigh–Taylor instability in the Caltech astrophysical jet laboratory experiment provides new insights into this coupling and motivates a 3D numerical simulation of this transition from large to small scale. A critical finding from the simulation is that the axial magnetic field inside the current-carrying dense plasma must exceed the field outside. In addition, the simulation verifies a theoretical prediction and experimental observation that, depending on the strength of the effective gravity produced by the primary kink instability, the secondary instability can be Rayleigh–T...

中文翻译：

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扭结驱动的瑞利-泰勒不稳定性导致快速磁重联的3D数值模拟

涉及非MHD微观物理学的快速磁重连接被认为是太阳爆发和实验室等离子体电流破坏的基础。尽管对MHD宏观物理学和非MHD微观物理学都进行了广泛的研究，但对于大规模MHD耦合到微观物理学的过程却还知之甚少。在Caltech天体物理射流实验室实验中，MHD不稳定性从扭结到次要Rayleigh-Taylor不稳定性级联，为这种耦合提供了新见解，并激发了从大到小过渡的3D数值模拟。从仿真中得出的关键发现是，载流密集等离子体内部的轴向磁场必须超过外部磁场。此外，仿真还验证了理论预测和实验观察，