Phase mixing and island saturation in Hamiltonian reconnection

Phys Rev Lett. 2001 May 28;86(22):5051-4. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.5051.

Abstract

The nonlinear evolution of a Hamiltonian magnetic field line reconnection in a two-dimensional fluid plasma leads to a macroscopic equilibrium with a finite-size island and fine-scale spatial structures. The latter arise from the phase mixing of the Lagrangian invariant fields. This equilibrium is the analog of the Bernstein-Greene-Kruskal equilibrium solution for electrostatic Langmuir waves.