Collisionless reconnection: The sub-microscale mechanism of magnetic field line interaction

TL;DR

This paper explores the quantum mechanical interactions of magnetic field lines, revealing how their collisionless behavior and reconnection processes are driven by virtual pair clouds and gauge potentials, providing a microscopic understanding.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum electrodynamics-based model of magnetic field line interactions, explaining collisionless reconnection at sub-microscale levels.

Findings

Parallel lines repel each other due to quantum effects.

Antiparallel lines attract via gauge potential interactions.

Virtual pair clouds mediate the reconnection process.

Abstract

Magnetic field lines are quantum objects carrying one quantum $\Phi_0=2\pi\hbar/e$ of magnetic flux and have finite radius $\lambda_m$. Here we argue that they possess a very specific dynamical interaction. Parallel field lines reject each other. When confined to a certain area they form two-dimensional lattices of hexagonal structure. We estimate the filling factor of such an area. Antiparallel field lines, on the other hand, attract each other. We identify the physical mechanism as being due to the action of the gauge potential field which we determine quantum mechanically for two parallel and two antiparallel field lines. The distortion of the quantum electrodynamic vacuum causes a cloud of virtual pairs. We calculate the virtual pair production rate from quantum electrodynamics and estimate the virtual pair cloud density, pair current and Lorentz force density acting on the field lines via the pair cloud. These properties of field line dynamics become important in collisionless reconnection, consistently explaining why and how reconnection can spontaneously set on in the field-free centre of a current sheet below the electron-inertial scale.