Investigating Turbulence Effects on Magnetic Reconnection Rates Through High-Resolution Three-Dimensional Resistive Magnetohydrodynamical Simulations

We investigate the impact of turbulence on magnetic reconnection through high-resolution 3D MHD simulations, covering Lundquist numbers from S=10^3 to 10^6. Our simulations introduce small-scale perturbations injected into the system until t=0.1 t_A. Even after the initial perturbation ceases, turbulence grows and persists, leading to sustained high reconnection rates of V_rec/V_A ∼ 0.03-0.08, which surpass those generated solely by resistive tearing modes (plasmoids) observed in 2D and 3D PIC/MHD simulations by factors of 5 to 6. Our findings reveal that the achieved reconnection rates align with observations in solar phenomena and those reported in 3D MHD global simulations of accretion flows and relativistic jets. Notably, our simulations exhibit a steady-state reconnection rate coinciding with the full development of turbulence, showcasing the robustness and persistence of the reconnection in a turbulent environment. We establish the independence of the reconnection rate from the Lundquist number, consistent with the theory of turbulent reconnection proposed by Lazarian and Vishniac. Our results demonstrate a mild dependence of V_rec on the plasma-β parameter, the ratio between the thermal and magnetic pressure, illustrating a decrease from 0.036 to 0.028 as β increases from 2 to 64 for simulations with S=10^5. Finally, we explore the influence of the magnetic Prandtl number (Pr_m=ν/η) on the reconnection rate and find this influence to be negligible during the turbulent regime across the range tested, from Pr_m=1 to 60. These findings carry significant implications for research into reconnection and particle acceleration within realistic magnetized space and astrophysical environments.