The Active Role and Models of Reconnecting Current Sheets in the Solar Atmosphere

Abstract

Before the Yohkoh mission, the process of magnetic reconnection in current sheets as a mechanism, which accumulates the energy of interacting magnetic fluxes and suddenly releases it in the solar atmosphere, was a matter of strong debates and doubts. Here both theoreticians and observers seemed to have strong feelings, often based on belief rather than indisputable theoretical or observational grounds. For example, many years ago, the theoreticians (see review [1]) argued that current sheets can create very fast directed ejections of plasma during the stage of fast reconnection. However, only after the observations of the so-called ‘X-ray jets’ by SXT on Yohkoh [2], this idea looks well supported by observations and numerical modeling. Moreover, the idea that reconnecting current sheets (RCS) play a key role in conversion of accumulated magnetic energy to kinetic and thermal energies of ejected plasmas [3] becomes obvious.