Numerical comparison between a Gyrofluid and Gyrokinetic model investigating collisionless magnetic reconnection

TL;DR

This study compares gyrofluid and gyrokinetic models for collisionless magnetic reconnection, showing they produce similar results in linear and nonlinear regimes, validating gyrofluid as an efficient alternative.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed comparison between gyrofluid and gyrokinetic simulations, demonstrating their agreement in modeling collisionless magnetic reconnection.

Findings

Good agreement in linear growth rates across wave numbers

Similar nonlinear island evolution and saturation

Minor discrepancies in island width at high Δ' values

Abstract

The first detailed comparison between gyrokinetic and gyrofluid simulations of collisionless magnetic reconnection has been carried out. Both the linear and nonlinear evolution of the collisionless tearing mode have been analyzed. In the linear regime, we have found a good agreement between the two approaches over the whole spectrum of linearly unstable wave numbers, both in the drift kinetic limit and for finite ion temperature. Nonlinearly, focusing on the small-$\Delta '$ regime, with $\Delta '$ indicating the standard tearing stability parameter, we have compared relevant observables such as the evolution and saturation of the island width, as well as the island oscillation frequency in the saturated phase.The results are basically the same, with small discrepancies only in the value of the saturated island width for moderately high values of $\Delta '$. Therefore, in the regimes investigated here, the gyrofluid approach can describe the collisionless reconnection process as well as the more complete gyrokinetic model.