The Onset of Magnetic Reconnection in Dynamically Evolving Coronal Current Sheets

Abstract We present the first results of three-dimensional (3D) numerical magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the onset of magnetic reconnection via the tearing instability in dynamically thinning current sheets in the solar corona. In all our simulations, the onset of the nonlinear tearing instability, which leads to the breakup of the thinning current sheet, does not occur until after the instability growth time becomes faster than the dynamic thinning time. Furthermore, as in previous 3D MHD simulations of static current sheets in the corona, for some parameters the amount of magnetic shear is a fundamental switch-on parameter, which has consequences for coronal heating models. These results open up the possibility of using observable quantities of coronal current sheets to predict when they will break up and release magnetic energy to power various energetic phenomena and/or heat the atmosphere.