Poster abstract

A tearing mode with sufficient amplitude leads to magnetic reconnection and, in its nonlinear development, the process can account for the conversion of large amounts of magnetic energy into kinetic energy and to a global reconfiguration of magnetic topology. Although too slow to account for the energy release in a flare, the tearing mode may help to explain coronal heating. A simple 1D analytical model with uniform resistivity is developed and the growth rates obtained here are compared with numerical estimates. We then progress to a 2D regime with a non-uniform y-dependent resistivity profile, $\eta=\eta_0+\eta_1$cos$ky$, which introduces coupling effects with the introduction of the $\eta_1$ term.