Topological skeleton of the 2-D slightly non-ideal MHD system close to X-type magnetic null points – an analysis of the general solution for the generic case

Abstract. The appearance of eruptive space plasma processes, e.g. in eruptive flares as observed in the solar atmosphere, is usually assumed to be caused by magnetic reconnection, often connected with singular points of the magnetic field.

We are interested in the general relation between the eigenvalues of the Jacobians of the plasma velocity and the magnetic field and their relation to the shape of a spatially varying, localized non-idealness or resistivity, i.e. we are searching for the general solution. We perform a local analysis of almost all regular, generic, structurally stable non-ideal or resistive MHD solutions. Therefore we use Taylor expansions of the magnetic field, the velocity field and all other physical quantities, including the non-idealness, and with the method of comparison of coefficients, the non-linear resistive MHD system is solved analytically, locally in a close vicinity of the null point.

We get a parameterised general solution that provides us with the topological and geometrical skeleton of the resistive MHD fields. These local solutions provide us with the "roots" of field and streamlines around the null points of basically all possible 2-D reconnection solutions. We prove mathematically that necessarily, the flow close to the magnetic X-point must also be of X-point type to guarantee positive dissipation of energy and annihilation of magnetic flux. We also prove that, if the non-idealness has only a one-dimensional, sheet-like structure, only one separatrix line can be crossed by the plasma flow, similar to known reconnective annihilation solutions.