Monday

Magnetic reconnection is a recurring process taking place in various layers of the solar atmosphere, and plays a fundamental role in driving heating and explosive dynamics. However, unlike the processes occurring in fully-ionised coronal plasmas that have been subjects of extensive studies, still little is known about how magnetic reconnection develops in partially ionised plasmas of the lower atmosphere. In this talk I will investigate the role of partial ionisation on reconnection through the study of the coalescence instability. In a single-fluid MHD approach, this instability forms a turbulent reconnecting current sheet by driving plasmoid interaction, and is a key process that leads to fast reconnection without the addition of further anomalous resistivity terms. I will present my plasmoid simulations, focusing on the current distribution solved for a two-fluid model of the chromosphere, and then show how this new current distribution changes the dynamics of the coalescence process and the development of fast magnetic reconnection.