Abstract
Parker laid the foundation for the subject of magnetic reconnection in his fundamental early papers. We first of all summarise his contributions and give a new generalisation of the Sweet-Parker relations for a current sheet in which the outflow pressure is an extra parameter. Then we review the models for fast reconnection that have since been proposed, beginning with the Petschek mechanism and continuing to the more general Almost-Uniform and Nonuniform families. A comparison with numerical experiments is also made and the conditions under which fast reconnection exists are elucidated.
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© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Priest, E.R. (1996). Reconnection of Magnetic Lines of Force. In: Tsinganos, K.C. (eds) Solar and Astrophysical Magnetohydrodynamic Flows. NATO ASI Series, vol 481. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0265-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0265-7_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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