Spontaneous Onset of Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection on an Electron Scale

Abstract Using particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the onset of magnetic reconnection from a quiescent Harris current sheet in collisionless plasmas. After the current sheet is destabilized by the collisionless tearing mode instability, it proceeds to onset of reconnection, which manifests spontaneous thinning of current sheet and pileup of upstream magnetic flux. Once the current sheet thins to a critical thickness, about two electron inertial lengths, reconnection begins to grow explosively in this electron current sheet. This study shows that the spontaneous onset of collisionless magnetic reconnection is controlled by electron kinetics.