Magnetic reconnection plays an important role in the dynamics and heating of the solar chromosphere. For a partially ionized plasma a coalescence instability can form a turbulent reconnecting current sheeting. This current sheet is subject to the "tearing instability" which results in the production of secondary plasmoids. Three such structures form in this visualization, moving along the current sheet and eventually being expelled, with time progressing from left to right. The motion in this system is triggered by symmetry-breaking white noise perturbations.

Methods: PIP code