Role of Tearing Instability in Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence

Magnetohydrodynamic turbulence regulates the transfer of energy from large to small scales in many astrophysical systems, including the solar atmosphere. We performed three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations with unprecedentedly large magnetic Reynolds number (at a cost of ~200 million CPU hours) to reveal how rapid reconnection of magnetic field lines changes the classical paradigm of the turbulent energy cascade. By breaking elongated current sheets into chains of small magnetic flux ropes (or plasmoids), magnetic reconnection leads to a new range of energy cascade, where the rate of energy transfer is controlled by the growth rate of the plasmoids. As a consequence, the turbulent energy spectra steepen and attain a spectral index of -2.2 that is accompanied by changes in the anisotropy of turbulence eddies. The omnipresence of plasmoids and their consequences on, e.g., solar coronal heating, can be further explored with current and future satellites/telescopes.